


30 Days of Sherlock

by AtlinMerrick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 30 Days of Sherlock, And more! 30 Days of More!, Gardening, Gifts, Hair, Kisses, M/M, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:39:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 23,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty days of small Sherlock stories created for prompts as wide open as shopping, kisses, rainy days, and missing home.</p><p>This 30 day challenge uses <a href="http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/149555897153/30-day-challenge-sherlock">unremarkableawakening's prompts</a> originally created for Star Wars. I hope to complete it in 30 days but some folks know how good I am with finishing challenges like this on time—*cough* Advent finished in March *cough*—but I'll try.</p><p>Anyone who wants to join in on this—art, writing, whatever—please do! Just use the 30 Days of Sherlock tag so we can find you!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clothes Make the Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Shopping:_
> 
> "No bra."
> 
> Sherlock did not want a bra. Bustiers, corsets, these were fine, but Sherlock found that bras neither covered enough to be alluring while also covering more than necessary. No. He absolutely didn't want the bra.
> 
> "Except…"

"I don't like bras."

Sherlock squinted at the bra he didn't like. He could not deny that it was pretty, for a certain value of pretty. That value, at this moment, had much to do with the richness of the bra's silver embroidery. Sherlock is a sucker for embroidery-embellished lingerie.

"Then again."

Sherlock rubbed his thumb along the bra's strap. Egyptian cotton. A thread count so high it could not be counted. Even just fingering the strap felt voluptuous and naughty. Like something else Sherlock liked to finger.

"No."

Sherlock straightened his back, handed the bra back to the tailor, Mr. Silvere. Even without the fingering imagery playing round his head Sherlock knew the bra would be too distracting for everyday use. And the embroidery would show _right_ through every one of his perfectly-fitted shirts.

"However…"

The bra _did_ go perfectly with the panties he'd already selected. They were a set of course, two delicate wisps of blue and silver, each made for a man's figure. Though Mr. Silvere has promised to tailor the knickers so that they would not struggle quite so much to cover Sherlock's back acreage.

"No. No. I've changed my mind. No bra."

Sherlock did not want a bra. Bustiers, corsets, these were fine, but Sherlock found that bras neither covered enough to be alluring while also covering more than necessary. No. He absolutely didn't want the bra.

"Except…"

Sherlock delicately plucked the finely-crafted wisp from Mr. Silvere's hand, held it up against his black suit coat. It really was gorgeous. Sherlock briefly wished he could wear his undergarments as outer garments. That would make him some sort of superhero wouldn't it? He knows there's one that wears his panties on the outside. ("They're not panties Sherlock." "Says you.")

"Actually, no."

Sherlock would no more wear this bra in public than he would…than he would… Sherlock couldn't think of a thing he wouldn't do in public. Including wear this bra. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that he would not be purchasing the bra that matched the filmy blue knickers already nestling delicately in his little silk-lined basket. Sherlock didn't like bras.

"Though…"

Off over by the small display of jewelry, John Watson hummed. Possibly the _Superman_ theme song. He continued poking a casual finger through the pretty bracelet selection. He's been here before. Right exactly here. In front of Mr. Silvere's tasteful display of gems, squinting an eye at this or that as he holds something up toward a distant Sherlock.

Sometimes he's still looking even after Sherlock is done selecting his lingerie pretties. He only knows Sherlock's done because suddenly Sherlock's not there. That man leaves behind _really_ big silences.

Anyway, it's the silence that always makes John lift a head and look around. He did that now.

There was Mr. Silvere over by the antique till, ringing up Sherlock's half dozen selections with one hand and nibbling a custard cream with the other. In the hushed serenity of the wood-paneled shop John could hear the older man's humming. It sounded like the _Superman_ theme song. The dapper tailor was smiling and doing what he always does—pretending not to notice John creeping toward the gentlemen's lounge.

Still and all, John did what _he_ always does. He murmured, "Just…freshening…won't be…just a…right." Then John Watson vanished down the plushly-carpeted corridor and to the men's luxurious fitting room.

Behind the fitting room door Sherlock stood, chin to chest, silver thread on a cobalt bra catching the warm light and flattering his pale skin just so.

He was not wearing the panties.

—

_First, I'm doing this Sherlock challenge using the same prompts I'll be using for the[Star Wars-related challenge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7930627/chapters/18125374) that started this. Second, I think Sherlock would be a very persnickety shopper once he decided he wanted something. P.S. Mr. Silvere and his specialty shop first appeared in [Bespoke Lingerie](http://archiveofourown.org/works/727851/chapters/1355300). A gentleman does need to know where he can get pretty things._


	2. Dirty Mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Gardening:_
> 
> Lab tests take time, valuable time, Anderson-beating time, and if Sherlock can get a jump on a case by poking a thing across his palate then that's emphatically what he's going to do.
> 
> Yes, well, Dr. Are You Fucking Kidding Me With This? has a few choice things to say about that.

If John had a fifty pence piece for everything he's buried out back in his years with Sherlock, John Watson could retire today, tending a small garden of very strange things.

The first of those things would likely be whatever sprouts when you dig a hole behind your landlady's bins, there planting a half kilo of mouldy cheese you actively wrestled from your flatmate that first month you lived together.

Of the opinion that it paid to kill as many nutrition birds with one consumption stone as he could, Sherlock, before John, had a tendency to consume foods that were at once protein-, fat-, and calorie-rich. If they were soft, so much the better as this saved him time in the onerous task of _chewing._

Hence the cheese.

It had been some sort of yellow cheddar John thought, though from the look of it it had been in the refrigerator three times longer than cheese should be anywhere. However, stomach growling fit to distract, Sherlock had simply scraped off the white-blue mould festooning the hunk half the size of his own fist and, sitting back down to his experiment, started to chew.

Until Dr. Are You Fucking Kidding Me With This? took it out of his hand, which caused Sherlock to yank it back, which caused the doctor to half-headlock him, which caused Sherlock to pinch, which caused John to shout, which resulted in the good doctor grabbing the offending bit of dairy, and stomping off into the back garden.

There, instead of putting the cheese in the bins—from which Sherlock could just fetch it out again—John dug a hole _behind_ the bins, shoved in every last bit of bad cheese in the house, and dumped dirt on top of the pile with extreme, foot-stomping prejudice.

Alas, this was not where John Watson's unusual gardening efforts ceased, for something similar has played out repeatedly over the years and over those years John has found himself managing these moments in what has become a predictable—but effective—way.

For example, the feathers off the back of a pigeon thing. Not that Sherlock knew then that they were, indeed, pigeon feathers, which was why, he said, he was tasting them. He also said, in the way of the utterly deranged, that in his years before John and living on Montague Street he had actually performed a frankly bewildering array of experiments in the name of crime detection, including _tasting feathers._

Not just any feathers of course, but those downy little ones that get stuck between the treads of trainers and in the weaves of jumpers, the soft wee feathers it can be hard to differentiated between pigeon, duck, and swan, the tiny feathers that can quickly tell a keen and informed detective where a suspect might have recently been but only if he _knows what common bird feathers taste like._

Right, well sod that for a game of soldiers. Out to the back garden the feathers also went, every last, weirdly-clingy one—"They're called powder down feathers John and give them back this minute I'm not done tasting!"—and right into a hole beside Mrs. Turner's fence. Afterward John may or may not have promised Sherlock fifteen straight minutes of rimming and then oral sex if first he'd gargle with thirty mils of industrial-strength mouthwash. He did and so John did.

It didn't stop there because lab tests take time and if Sherlock thinks he can get a jump on a case by poking a thing across his palate then that's what he's going to do, sod _that_ for a game of soldiers, John Watson!

So anyway, this also covers the why of the plant John once buried, a thing that sounds counter-intuitive vis-à-vis plants, but since it was a weirdly ejaculatory air plant and allergic to dirt, and the thing was infested with some sort of tickling yellow fungus that gave John hives, it too had to go. In return John promised Sherlock a banoffee pie and blow job if he'd just skip that case and besides he said it was only a four. He did and so John did, burying the entire lot under Mrs. Hudson's clothesline then, afterward, smearing some pretty good pie on Sherlock's penis.

Probably the most unusual thing that John has had to bury in their dirt is _dirt,_ because doesn't it just go figure that Sherlock Holmes maintains he can tell human ashes from dog ashes by their _flavour_ and by this time John knows what to do.

"Put that teaspoon of dirt down Sherlock, close your mouth, and step away from the beaker. Do this because I'm tired of wondering if you're going to murder yourself with one of these insane experiments and because you love me. If you then hand me the beaker of dirt and the teaspoon too, I'm going to go dump them outside somewhere. After I wash my hands, your hands, the table, and the floor, I'm going to crawl into bed with my bare butt in the air and I'm going to just stay there until you feel you've been fairly compensated for your troubles. Do we have an agreement?"

Without a word but with a long-suffering sigh, Sherlock pushed the beaker, the spoon, his dirt-dusted notepad, even his pencil, across the kitchen table toward John.

With a martial bob of the head, John gathered everything up and marched into the back garden. It wasn't until Sherlock heard the door latch shut that he hooted in victory, undid his belt, and hot-footed it to the bedroom.

Seriously, like _anyone_ could taste the difference between dog ashes and human ashes?

_My thanks to the inimitable Verity Burns who suggested that the weirdest thing John might bury in the dirt was dirt, a light bulb moment of sheer genius._


	3. Paper Cut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Gift:_
> 
> Sherlock tilted his head and looked at that plump, _willing_ pillow. Then Sherlock Drama Queen Holmes moaned open-mouthed at it, saying quite clearly and without words the absolutely filthy thing he intended on doing to it, and doing, and—

Who knows why something's sexy? John Watson sure doesn't.

To get Sherlock's attention, he'd once tried eating a strawberry provocatively. He received not so much as a polite leer. Then later, when a stealthy chili pepper laid John low with hiccups and a sweaty flush, Sherlock had knocked him down and got them both up so fast they'd each ejaculated, cleaned up, and had a cup of tea before John managed to stop squeaking.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't know why a thing is sexy either, despite being the second-most observant man on earth. Half the time Sherlock's already in the middle of a thing, like that time he meditatively twiddled his own eyelashes while humming something perky, before he realises John's gone dead still, silent except for some moist, open-mouthed panting, looking at him like he wants to eat whatever part of Sherlock is naked and on offer first.

The point of all of that is this: Neither knows why what happened with that pillow was infinitely sexier because Sherlock kept his clothes on. All of them, socks, trousers, belt, shirt, he didn't even take off his suit coat and because of this everything was _infinitely sexier._

It started because John Watson was out until nightfall doing _stupid_ paperwork. Stupid paperwork _Sherlock_ should have done. Stupid paperwork that had given him a _paper cut._ That was the worst bit, too, the sodding paper cut right there between index and thumb, because do you know how often you use that bit? _A lot more than you think you do._

So John had been sucking on that cut and muttering curses all the way home and didn't see fit to stop when he stepped into the flat except exactly when he stepped through their door, he got a text.

_I'm sorry John._

Three words. Three words and somehow already John was a little bit not scowling. Yes, well that wasn't one, so he re-scowled and thought about replying tartly but there was another text.

 _You do the paperwork_ soooo _much better than I do._

Ten words of bullshit and John almost wasn't scowling again. He fixed that little problem by rescowling double, and beginning that tart reply but there was another text.

_I have a little…gift…for you John._

That was when John realised the flat contained breathing. He could now feel that the air was denser than it had been moments ago. Heavy with the presence of a Holmes. With the presence of a…horny Holmes.

John texted Sherlock—

_I'm coming to get it._

—and darted through the dark sitting room to where he knew Sherlock would be. And there he was. Kneeling at the foot of their bed, fully dressed and waiting.

One small lamp on a far table cast pretty shadows, sketched consulting cheekbones sharp and soft both. John stepped into the room and a half dozen feet from the bed he went still.

Precisely then Sherlock looked down. To their rumpled bed. With the drop of a chin, a half-smile, and a purr Sherlock Holmes began eyeing the plumpest of their pillows as if it were John Watson's succulent bare arse.

Oh.

_Oh._

This was that thing. That ridiculous thing. That thing John had said weeks and weeks ago. About sex. In a suit. About watching Sherlock have sex in a suit. Except, John had mused all those weeks past, except he wouldn't be able to watch Sherlock having sex in a suit if he was the one Sherlock was having sex with and—

—and so Sherlock was going to fuck John's pillow so that John. Could watch. Sherlock have sex. In a suit. That was his gift.

The good doctor flushed so quickly he swooned.

Before he could do anything more than right himself, Sherlock fell forward on to his hands. He tilted that fine head and he _looked_ at that plump, _willing_ pillow. Then Sherlock Drama Queen Holmes moaned open-mouthed at it, the sound guttural and graphic, saying quite clearly and without words the absolutely filthy thing he intended on doing to it, and doing, and—

John's traitorous knee (the left one, the right one, they take turns going out when he needs them) buckled. The good doctor's movement caught Sherlock's eye. Turning, he watched John stumble-kneel on the floor and, without so much as a raised eyebrow John encouraged Sherlock to continue.

So Sherlock did.

"John," Sherlock said to that curvaceous pillow, his mouth falling open hungrily as if something would fill it.

Instead Sherlock fell to his elbows, arse in the air, he crawled forward a little, and he _breathed_ on that pure white, plump pillow. In, out, deep and heavy and _wanting_ until finally he sighed and said, "John, Johnny, my John… _ooh,"_ and then Sherlock _mounted_ it.

John moaned because Jesus fuck. Absolutely Jesus fuck. The mounting. That. John loves that. The word. The act. He loves when he feels Sherlock getting _on_ him, his big body climbing over his, his sweat-slicked belly pressed against John's spine, his cock pushing insistently at John's arse long, long before it slides _in_ and—

"Please John," Sherlock breathed, long legs clamping around that pillow, trouser linen stretching tight on his thighs, the seams of his coat pulling hard at the shoulders, and why, why was that sexy?

John wants to know, truly, in some weirdly academic way he does. But also he doesn't _actually,_ instead he just wants to stare at the fabric pulling taut along Sherlock's legs and his shoulders, and John wants to grunt, so he does, because that's sexual, as sexual as he thought it would be weeks and weeks ago when Sherlock was trying on this new cobalt blue suit and John was lying on the bed voice husky deep and saying, "I bet you'd look beautiful going at it in that thing, god you'd look so sexy _fucking_ me in that thing."

He'd been right, John had, because John's a genius about some things and sex is one of those things. And Sherlock? Oh he's a genius at follow through.

Which he was doing now with the slowest thrust of his hips, down, down, down into that too-soft pillow and when he reached it he _rocked,_ rocked back and forth, back and forth, _rubbing_ his cock on the pillow. "John. Oh John, John, John," he pleaded. "It's not enough. John, it's not _enough."_

John whispered, "Jesus," and bit at his knuckles without feeling it, too light-headed for high-functioning thought. His hind brain though, my god that beast was skittering-active, firing bright, hot arousal right to John's dick, bypassing every bit of his body where desire usually gathered—mouth, belly, chest. Nope, right now John was little more than a thrumming heart and a hard dick and _oh god oh god._

Hands fisted in the sheets, Sherlock was teeth-clenched and guttural _growling,_ thighs locking around that pillow as he moved ever faster, until he was pounding into it.

"Nnnn," he hissed, driving hard into that relentlessly soft thing. "Nnnnnot," he moaned grinding his hips. "Nnnnnot," he whined, spreading his legs wider, "Nnnnnnot," he begged and stuttered and whispered and sighed, _"enough."_

Except they both knew it would be, that it was. Because in this Sherlock is another sort of genius and will always finish what he started. If the mission is to tease John, arouse him, make him want and keen and come by _himself_ coming, well then Sherlock will do that thing.

Except no.

No.

John stood. John tripped. John quite nearly swooned again. That was fine. It was all fine. Because the bed caught him. John tripped back-first onto the bed and—

Sherlock stilled. He looked slowly away from the pillow. He looked at John.

Then Sherlock Holmes mounted John Watson.

Fully clothed they both were and hard enough to be _more_ than enough. Cock to dick to jeans to suit to Sherlock holding himself up on his arms, and looking down at John as if he were a wild animal barely captured.

With a growl Sherlock fell to his elbows, bit at John's neck, and he _thrust_ and _pushed_ and _moaned._ He keened and shook and he _begged._ "John, John, let me let meletmeee."

Sherlock rocked backward and then _draaagged_ himself up along John's body. Down…then draaag. Down and then _drag,_ again and again and again until John fisted his hands in Sherlock's hair, moaned, and fucking came in his pants.

Panting, grunting, mumbling wordless words Sherlock unbuttoned, he unzipped, he tugged his cock free and, his entire body spasming, pushing out chest-deep grunts, Sherlock came all over John's jeans.

There followed a good, solid five minutes of collapsed panting. Maybe a little light dozing. Then rousing, John mumbled, "Sherlock?"

Starfished on the bed Sherlock sighed at the ceiling. He murmured, just barely, "John?"

All John's bones had melted. He was sure of that. It felt…peaceful. "Sherlock, did you jizz on my jeans so you wouldn't get your suit messy?"

Sherlock thought briefly about panicking. He thought more than briefly about what sort of answer would get him into the least amount of trouble and which wasn't also a lie. After a good twenty seconds Sherlock settled on unvarnished truth. "Yes."

John sighed at the ceiling. Closed his eyes. After a moment he reached out blindly, patted Sherlock's cheek.

"Good boy."

—  
_Do you ever wonder where left-of-centre ideas come from? *Double-handed gesture at pillow-humping story* After nearly six years of writing fic I do. I've still got no idea._


	4. Duck and Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kisses:_
> 
> John Watson apologises to ducks.
> 
> There's a very good reason for this.

John apologises to ducks.

Not randomly, no, don't be foolish. John only apologises to ducks he's accidentally frightened.

To be fair, there are almost always extenuating circumstances for the frighting, and if Mister Sherlock _Did The Thing He Wasn't Supposed to Do And Tried to Hide the Burnt Evidence_ Holmes thinks being in the park is going to prevent John from hollering about it, then he's got another think coming.

That, however, is beside the point, which is that once John's had his one-sided row with Sherlock, scared the waterfowl, then stomped off home, he always comes _back_ afterward.

The before component of afterward includes Sherlock leaving the park three paces behind John, following him home, there to silently clean up the still-smoking/smelly/frightening mess on the kitchen table/in the tub/under their bed, and after Sherlock's cuddles, apologies, more apologies, some very literal arse kissing, even more apologies, a bit more arse kissing, a sort of derailment of the arse kissing into arse _licking,_ which almost always diverges into rimming which lands four-square on orgasms for everyone, well after all of that John always returns to the park, there to make amends with the unnerved ducks by feeding them a half-dozen tea cakes broken into little raisiny pieces.

Sherlock accompanies him on this errand, stands by penitent and quiet, and then they go out for dinner afterward.

Perversely John tends to order duck. He feels bad about that.

_This very short entry brought to you by my desperate desire to stay on target with this 30 day calendar and already failing._


	5. A Piece of Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Work:_
> 
> It was like a gunshot inside John's head. 
> 
> Why? _Why_ did they get a real result back? It was just a sodding ruse, getting the x-ray was just Sherlock's _trick_ to get closer to the technician, it wasn't supposed to be real, none of this was supposed to be real.
> 
> Fine. That was _fine._
> 
> John Watson had work to do.

John Watson's a piece of work. He has bad days, bad moods, selfish desires, sometimes he lets his moral compass spin _right_ off the mark.

And makes excuses for all of it.

*Bam!*

Shot in the shoulder—why? Well, because John Watson failed to follow the rules laid down by the Afghan medical team's senior doctor. John knew best he did, and believed in the hospital system triage, not this scoring system shit which didn't _work._ So John veered left when the team went right, and a sniper fucking _sniped._ And everything changed.

*Bam!*

Shot the cabbie dead—why? Well, because the ridiculous-strange-beautiful man he's known for a day or forever was in trouble. So he killed the cab driver and the strange man, the beautiful man, the man he'd known hardly at all but also always…he lived. And changed everything.

*Bam!*

_The scan shows a spot on the lung, further testing will be necessary._

It was like a gunshot inside John's head. _Why?_ Why did they get a real result back? It was just a sodding ruse, getting the x-ray was just Sherlock's _trick_ to get closer to the technician, it wasn't supposed to be real, none of this was supposed to be _real._ But the letter in John's hand four weeks after was, so was the roaring in his head and the scream he couldn't let out.

John Watson got to work.

He pulled strings, he hounded, he got Sherlock a second appointment the next day. Then he got after the technicians, the lab, the doctor, for the results, a thorn in everyone's side. He made excuses. When "I'm a doctor, too," didn't sound forceful enough, he played the pity card, "I'm a veteran," and when he felt embarrassed but unrepentant about that, he said, "Look, he's my husband I need you to just…"

And they did. Just a _bit_ faster, but hey, a day's difference makes all the difference, so the _minute_ Dr. Nall said she'd have the results John was in her office doorway.

She had them in her hands when she looked up. Nall was merciful, made no small talk. "Everything's fine. It was only a scan artifact. You're absolutely fine Mr. Holmes."

John's heart maybe stopped. But the world started up again.

Sherlock took John's hand and he spoke to the doctor and then to the desk nurse and then the cabbie and Mrs. Hudson and John heard none of it. Didn't feel Sherlock drag him inside, to the sofa, pull his head in his lap.

John fell asleep. When he woke—it was only minutes later—Sherlock was talking about a case that was only a two, a bee study that had been done all wrong, about the travesty of the new Thai place two doors from the flat.

John closed his eyes. Sighed himself a smile. He believed in mercy. Because mercifully nothing, _nothing_ had changed.

 _I like when prompts veer because sometimes you learn something new about a character, or relearn something old. John Watson? I don't think he's a better man than Sherlock. Not one little bit. He_ is _the right one for him though. Yes._


	6. Raise the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hair:_
> 
> Sherlock's hair sometimes speaks more loudly than _he_ does.

More times than it's possible to count Sherlock Holmes has stood, sat, or paced through an interview with his hair in a halo of disarray.

If his dark 'do began sleek and smooth, put there with gels and combs and his barber's gentle admonitions, well it virtually guaranteed Sherlock would have his fingers in it before the journalist put the full stop on their first question because, _dear god already_ the question was too stupid to bear and sublimating with a fist in his hair was the only way Sherlock could keep himself from shouting "Idiot!" at absolutely everyone.

Or, if his hair had grown a bit long and looked fetchingly finger-combed, equal parts Byronic and Posh Mad Hatter, it all but guaranteed that the news crew would want to stand on a pier in front of the Oxo Tower—really, what was it with TV journalists and piers?—and the wind would whip Sherlock's curls into such a tangled nest that twice bees actually ran into it _on camera_ and it was all Sherlock could do not to tell everyone everywhere that they were _morons._

However, only one time did Sherlock's hair stick up in the back so as to look exactly like devil's horns.

This happened during a live and widely-televised press conference at the Met and, so urbane, cool, and even witty was Sherlock throughout, that the entire press corps just assumed that with his hair he was making a pointed jibe at anyone still inclined to vilify him with that _surely he commits the crimes he solves_ nonsense.

Only John knew that Sherlock's hair was in that devilish state because another way Sherlock sublimates his endless desire to call everyone a fool is to let John drag him into a coat cupboard, press him against the wall, and grope around in his trousers a bit.

This usually has the effect of putting a pretty blush on Sherlock's cheeks, a stiffy in his pants and, that once, horns on his head.

They suited him of course.

Of _course_ they did.

—  
 _Raise the devil. Get it? His penis? Raised? His hair making him devilish? Yeah? See? That thing? *crickets* Well then._


	7. Mirror Image

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Love:_
> 
> What, Sherlock wonders, does love actually look like?

Sherlock doesn't look in the mirror much.

He's vain about his brains, not his beauty, but those first few days after he and John became lovers Sherlock mirror-gazed almost every time he was alone. The man who sees almost everything was trying to see…love.

Looking in his own eyes, at his mouth, the colour of his skin, the set of his jaw, he was trying to see if what he felt inside showed, because Sherlock couldn't believe that something as monumental as an earthquake could leave behind no evidence.

So each time he heard the click of a door latching—John gone to take a shower, John making a quick Tesco run—Sherlock looked in the mirror and he tried to see.

Did love look like his chapped lips, red from too much kissing? Did it look like the skin around his mouth, made a little raw with beard burn? Was it in the prideful lift of his chin because John wanted _him,_ had picked _him,_ touched and held and desired _him?_

No, of course not, that wasn't it, that wasn't what love looked like.

Maybe it wasn't in his face at all, maybe it was somewhere else.

Though Sherlock's an agnostic man, he has in these last few days learned that his body understands worship. It was there last night in bed when he reverently tucked John's cold hands between his own, then breathed warm over them until John fell asleep. It was there in the way he right now curled his fingers protectively around his palm, where just five minutes ago John had softly kissed before leaving to fetch breakfast sandwiches from Mr. Chatterjee. That piety will be there in an hour when he coaxes John back to bed, and finds himself giving and taking pleasure as if it's a sacrament.

No. No no no.

Sherlock chuffed, impatient, stepped closer to the mirror and touched the glass, as if his fingertips could relay what his eyes weren't quite seeing. That's when he saw John's reflection in the mirror and, a second later his own again.

Oh.

_Oh._

There it was. There, right right _there._ That expression on his own face? That _smile?_ There was joy in it and fear of loss. There was need and want and desire too, there was more, he was sure of it, other things he was yet to understand. But there it was.

There in that smile, his evidence, his earthquake.

Sherlock looked again at John's reflection, the mirror of his own.

There…there was his love.

_—  
I wanted to write something much longer, but sometimes the stories want to be small and about one very big small thing. This was that._


	8. Weight and See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Cuddles:_
> 
> Sherlock noticed the first time, the very first time John waited until the lights were out before undressing. And Sherlock noticed the first time John frowned at himself in the loo mirror, poking his small pot belly.
> 
> Sherlock didn't wait for a third time.

Sherlock is strong-willed, but the fuel that used to feed that will was obstinacy. He'd so often do the opposite of what was ‘right’ because it got him the attention he craved. Once he received all the attention he _needed—_ from John—Sherlock mostly stopped his purposeless war with food, with sleep, with the world.

But Sherlock's war had left wounds, and that first year they were together John saw what so many saw when they looked at Sherlock: A beautiful man with upswept eye and chiseled cheeks, but John also saw what no one else saw, Sherlock’s body bared.

For John, there was no beauty there.

There’s a difference between slender thin and hungry thin. So when the good doctor Watson saw Sherlock, when he counted the knobs on his spine, looked at shoulders in which collar bones rose sharp, counted the sturdy fretwork of a rib cage, John, who has his whole life waged a small and quiet war with his own weight, looked at this man going hungry, and he felt a few things:

Empathy mostly, because John hates the idea of hunger, of that gnawing hurt in the belly felt by something unfed. There's almost nothing a human body needs more than food and to see one going without pained John deep.

John also felt anger. _Stop it,_ he wanted to say through clenched teeth. _You just stop._ Stop now this thing you’re doing that you don’t have to do, that no one but you is making you do, stop it, you stop it _now._

And finally John felt jealousy. He's a humane man, a good man, but he's flawed like everyone else and sometimes, just sometimes, when he watched Sherlock push away a plate of biscuits, forgo cream in his tea, well sometimes John thought, _you're stronger than I am. So much stronger than me._

So yes, when John first saw Sherlock's body he felt and thought all of these things, but the predominant feeling, and the one he acted on, was the anger and the empathy. _This far and no farther. You will not go hungry on my watch. I don't care if it's codependent or wrong or right, you will eat Sherlock Holmes and I will help you_ love it.

And the thing is, John did. It took teasing and temptation and frankly more sweets sweetened with sugar and honey than made sense, it took all of that for John to entice Sherlock to stop starving himself, to see that there were other ways of being strong.

John changed the unchangeable, he reintroduced the _enjoyment_ of food to Sherlock, and so over the years Sherlock gained nearly a stone and instead of looking ravenous, a sculpted saint, he looked strong, beautiful, a force to be reckoned with.

And that was wonderful, it was great, but then the ironic thing started happening, the confusing thing, the thing John didn't like to think about because he wasn't sure what it said about him: John started feeling…fat.

And that made him feel…bad.

It didn't make sense and he knew it didn't. Fat wasn't bad. Unhealthy was, yes, but fat isn't necessarily unhealthy. Obesity'll get you there pretty fast, but a spare tire? A bit of pudge? It's not the end of the world or of your good health so _what's the problem?_

The problem was the cult of perfection. John realized it was easy to be unaffected by something if that something doesn't touch his life. He could claim not to buy into the buff-bodies stereotype when all his lovers were built like him—a little plump here and there—but then he'd fallen in love with, let's be frank, _perfection,_ and it was harder to maintain his distance. It became difficult to look at Sherlock's sleek flesh and to not think _I'll never look like that._ And worse: _Why would he want to be with me?_

Ah, but the funny thing is, John Watson was not the only one with empathy. Or anger. Or devious ways and means to change a mind.

So Sherlock noticed the first time, the very first time John waited until the lights were out before undressing. And Sherlock noticed the first time John frowned at himself in the loo mirror, poking his small pot belly.

Sherlock didn't wait for a third time.

_This far and no farther, John Watson. I will show you your body with my eyes, I will show you your beauty._

Sherlock began to single out parts and pieces of John to clutch and cuddle. He licked at a bellybutton and then pretended to have tongue sex with it, despite its determined outtie status. John giggled too much to be self-conscious of his softness and, when Sherlock accidentally fell asleep, his head comfortably pillowed on John's stomach, he congratulated himself later for his inadvertent genius.

A week later Sherlock nipped at the softness of John's jaw, then pushed his nose into the flesh there and reported his findings. John smelt divine, said Sherlock, better than he had a right, considering they'd been running after miscreants all day and Sherlock himself was offensively pungent.

"But you," he said, kissing what anyone might call a double-chin but what Sherlock right then called delicious, "you've just gone ahead into delectable."

Then Sherlock went ahead and forever changed the unchangeable the night he crawled on top of John and, instead of accepting the offer of John's wide-spread thighs, Sherlock _kept crawling._

There in the shadows of one candle, his arse dripping warm with John's come, Sherlock settled his naked self on top of his lover, slicked-up cock sliding on John's soft stomach and there, for the first time but not the last, Sherlock took pleasure in John's fleshy excess.

Sighing, he rutted slowly into the plushness of that belly, breathy he panted, "Oh please." Sherlock hummed and moaned, he whispered his want and keened his need. He petted John's skin, his hips, his waist, he watched John watch as he humped against that full, fine flesh.

This went on awhile of course, because a belly isn't an arse, it's not tight, it's not snug, yet that was what made this pleasure-chasing so sweet. So there was more lube drizzling and there was giggling when Sherlock's cock head got caught and tried burrowing into John's navel, but eventually Sherlock did come—about the time John placed his hand on top of Sherlock's cock, pressing it hard against his own stomach—with a shudder and a groan.

Grateful for the pleasure, for the chance to give something to this man who gave him everything, Sherlock murmured lust-drunk words of this and that as he sloppily mopped up his mess, then slid down, down, and rested his cheek on John's stomach.

One hand on the small swell of it, the other hooked under John's thigh, Sherlock cuddled close, made up an absurd belly ode on the spot—

_Sweet stomach you are sweet_  
_You make a pretty, pretty seat_  
_Sorry about the come in your belly button hole_  
_John did you know that inside there you have a mole?_

Then to the sound and feel of John's laughter, Sherlock passed out, right in the act of kissing the little mole.

_—  
I've been on both sides of the weight issue, the going-hungry and the overweight and, like John here, I war with it. We're lucky we have such abundance, but I think our animal brains are still trying to figure out what to do about all of it. Each of us gets there in our own way. John's included cuddles and come in the bellybutton, it included banning the outside judgments that weakened him, and instead accepting the one that gave him strength. I hope your ways are as positive._


	9. His Crowning Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Flower Crowns:_
> 
> The first time John put flowers in Sherlock's hair it was because Sherlock had put flowers in his own. 
> 
> It was, of course, an accident. And for a case.

The first time John put flowers in Sherlock's hair it was because Sherlock had put flowers in his own.

That part was an accident and occurred after the good detective, in pursuit of a brace of wind-blown clues, dashed under a blooming shrub, then emerged with a dozen tiny orange petals in his dark locks.

So delighted was John with these natural jewels spangling his pretty love that, the next day, he brought home a little bouquet of orange lantanas, then tried to give Sherlock a flower crown.

Sherlock was having none of it.

Not because he cared about crowns or flowers, but because, "This old Converse trainer won't cook itself John! Now with a little bit of water and vinegar, I'm sure I can extract and then separate the eighteen oils I'm certain are embedded in this shoe and which will provide Professor Jarasick and her octopus with an alibi!"

Right, well, Mrs. Hudson had liked the lantana and besides John figured he was a little bit allergic to them.

The next time John tried to put flowers in Sherlock's hair he used scarlet pimpernels, while also trying to tell Sherlock the story of that infamous rogue.

Sherlock was having none of it.

Not because he was against chivalrous Englishmen, but because, "Molly says the corpse's belly is full of _bees_ John! Bees! I don't even know how I feel about that. Back late, don't wait up!"

John quite liked the pimpernels so, inspired, he spent the rest of the night watching Anthony Andrews Pimpernel, swanning around prettily and purring, "Sink me." When Sherlock did eventually turn up John encouraged his disappointed love—"Two bees John, just two!"—to sink (into) him. He did.

Then there was John's flower crown attempt with a delicate chain of goat's beard—"Goat what? John, please, you can do that later, right now we have to talk to the butterfly wrangler before Scotland Yard gets wind of her cocoons!"

After that John thought he was on to something when Sherlock was cuddled up on his lap watching a documentary about Irish bog bodies, and he began poking pink nasturtium in Sherlock's curls, until Sherlock started complaining John's cock was poking _him._

Thing is, it was. So, they ended up having sex on the sofa, the flowers surrendering their lives when Sherlock discovered a mouthful of nasturtiums made his mouth—and therefore John's penis—all tingly.

It happened at last about six months after those tiny orange petals in wild dark curls.

John coaxed Sherlock to the park with the allure of a boxed set of _The ABCs of Notorious Unsolved Crimes: America, Britain, and Canada._

Once Sherlock went belly down on the damp lawn and started reading out grisly little facts—"Oh, and you'll never guess in which body cavity they found that serving spoon John!"—John proceeded to dress Sherlock's hair with little ramsons starbursts, sure that Sherlock's cluck of approval had to do with thinking John said _ransom_ instead.

Didn't matter. Sherlock wore his flower crown for the rest of the day.

—  
_Anthony Andrews was such a hottie when I was a teen. And ramsons are lovely-looking flowers. And masticated nasturtiums are indeed tingly. I can not speak for how they feel on a penis. A tiny flower 'shopped into[Sherlock's hair](http://67.media.tumblr.com/fd8d53519f84722fb90497e3ebf456d7/tumblr_odjrv0b65P1qja1bno1_1280.jpg). Ooo, and Noadventureshere offered [another flower crown Sherlock](http://68.media.tumblr.com/fbc253495beac8d84403eb1a875a62cc/tumblr_odjxq45jMI1tgxngeo4_540.jpg), thank you A!_


	10. Fire Balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Balloons:_
> 
> The first time Maureen Lenore Sherlock Vernet Holmes helped her youngest son set things on fire, Sherlock Holmes was five.

The best birthday present Sherlock Holmes ever received was the gift of _fire._

Of course it came from his mother, the combuster. Because the person who literally wrote the book on how things burn, understood that, for some, there is an abiding fascination with flame.

And Maureen Lenore Sherlock Vernet Holmes knew her six-year-old son had very definitely inherited her love of things that flash, smolder, and smoke so, to temper the feeling that fire was forbidden and therefore alluring—as her own mother had done from the time Maureen was four—Mummy Holmes gave her young son things that burn.

Gently.

The first time she did this was with seven confetti balloons on Sherlock's fifth birthday.

After the other children had gone home with their slices of cake and their shouting, Maureen took her small son's balloons out into the back garden. Her small son tagged automatically behind, randomly squirting water at things with one of the new plastic pipettes he'd received for his birthday.

Altamont and Mycroft pottered along a few minutes later, setting up shop on the picnic table with more cake and a five thousand piece puzzle.

"Now then," Maureen said, squatting down in front of her tiny son with his chubby knees. "Each of these pretty helium balloons has confetti inside. Each bit of it is impregnated with glycerin, potassium permanganate, and a chemical solution for which mummy has just this week received a patent."

In the near distance Altamont made a proud clucking noise.

"Now," Maureen said to her birthday boy, "here is a pin. You can pop these balloons and, if you use your pipette to squirt just a drop of water onto each piece of confetti, a chemical reaction will make it _burst into flame!"_

Sherlock, who had been flagging a little after a day spent screaming and shoving food in his face, stood up so straight his plump little knees dimpled. "Fire!" he shouted.

 _"Fire,"_ mummy agreed.

Every day for the next week Sherlock popped a balloon and every day Maureen watched him tromp around their chilly back garden, counting aloud every single small burst of flame he succeeded in making.

By the time he'd set fire to the last bit of confetti Sherlock Holmes was actually kind of tired of things that burn, as Maureen knew he would be.

Then, a couple months later, Professor Holmes brought home five hundred mils of her patented solution and a solid hatred of the old family sofa.

Together mother and youngest son burned that fucker to ash.

Altamont sat at the picnic table with a hose, just in case.

—  
_I am in love with, and refuse to give up, the head canon that Sherlock's mum gave him her love of fire. Thank you. ([Sherlock's balloons](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/150493843734/fic-30-days-of-sherlock-fire-balloons-balloons).) P.S. You can set fires with water! I looked it up! The ingredients are exactly the ones I gave in the story! Minus Mummy Holmes' secret ingredient!_


	11. Things Sherlock Holmes Has Cooked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Cooking:_
> 
> Sherlock can cook, of course he can.
> 
> His _definition_ of 'cook' may be broader than most. This is, however, a good thing.

Sherlock can cook, though his definition of the word may be broader than some. A few of the things Sherlock Holmes has cooked this year include but are not limited to:

_* Sheep Entrails_

Standing in front of the hob for three hours straight, he stirred and peered and pinched up likely bits, his patience being finally rewarded when he extracted the hair-thin needle he _knew_ was in there.

Though Sherlock periodically threw twists of lemon into the pot to hide the entrails' ghastly stench while things simmered, this did not really work.

They caught the would-be murderer though.

_* Thai Chili Soup_

After a successfully-concluded case for the owners of their favourite Thai restaurant, Sherlock used the gift of a case of coconut milk to make soup. A _lot_ of soup.

When John asked if he'd cooked it in the same pot in which he'd stewed those minging entrails, Sherlock said no.

He lied.

John knew anyway.

The soup was delicious.

_* A Size Eleven Shoe_

Sherlock never asked the physics professor why she had an octopus, how such a petite woman could possibly have such large feet, or whether those suck marks on her neck were from the frisky cephalopod.

He _did_ ask at what time she'd made the Caesar salad and precisely how she'd held the poorly-diapered baby.

Her answers, and cooking that size eleven trainer, helped him prove her alibi.

(The suck marks were from the professor's wife, a very _oral_ woman.)

_* Chocolate Wasabi Popcorn_

John has always said he doesn't like savory things to be sweet or sweet things to be savory, but apparently he's a liar vis-à-vis Sherlock extending his Thai kick to include Japan, and the best popcorn John's ever had.

When he asked if Sherlock had made it in the same pot in which he'd stewed the professor's shoe, Sherlock said no.

He was telling the truth.

John didn't believe him.

_* A Five-Course Vegetarian Dinner_

This one was for a case, but at its conclusion they got to actually eat everything _and_ John didn't have to bin any pots.

(That's what he does now, it's the only way to be sure.)

So the cashew-nut straws with the vodka-spiked plum sauce, the mango-lime salad and sweet-chili crepes, the goat's cheese and shallot tarts, the wild mushroom and watercress mousse, the walnut-chocolate ganache?

Well, not only did these take Sherlock five hours to prepare, proving his point about the chef and her twin brothers, but damn they were _fantastic._

Some ganache may or may not have found its way smeared on John's nipples.

**The Best Thing John Watson Has Cooked**

John does much of the cooking in their flat, though he doesn't have half Sherlock's natural skill. Still, there is one thing John makes better than anyone else could.

_* Sherlock Holmes_

John Watson has cooked, baked, and fricasseed Mr. Sherlock Holmes since the first time they crawled into a bed together. This metaphor, for it is obviously that, can be carried through in two ways.

The first is body heat.

John's runs a little high and so, right from their cuddling start, Sherlock has been delightfully cooked in the wonderful _warmth_ of John.

Curled close in bed come winter John's thighs warm Sherlock's chilly hands, his hands warm Sherlock's cold nose, his front warms Sherlock's goosebumped back. However, Sherlock's fucking, god damn, ridiculous how-do-you-even- _get-_ them-this-cold? feet are usually on their own.

The second metaphorical way John Watson cooks Sherlock Holmes is, of course, through sexing.

He breathes hot at the back of Sherlock's neck when the man's about to go off on a cranky crime scene tangent.

Breathes hotter still down Sherlock's spine when the man's belly-down on their bed.

Slicks a hot, hot tongue between the plump cheeks of Sherlock's arse and pushes deep.

And _that,_ right there, is when Sherlock goes _incandescent_ with the heat of John. That's when Sherlock is cooked and roasted, baked and besotted and nothing, oh my god absolutely _nothing_ compares to that.

No, not octopus or trainers or closed cases or _anything._

—  
_I think there is pretty much nothing Sherlock wouldn't do for a case. I think he'd cook shoes and entrails and his own hair. He is good at scrubbing out the pots after but John's just having none of it. (Mrs. Hudson's started pulling the pots from the bins and planting pansies in them.)_


	12. Porn Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _AU:_
> 
> Pacing the rug from one tatty corner to the next, glowering as if in so doing he'd cause the snow to cease falling and the criminals to start criminaling had officially lost its allure. 
> 
> Instead of thinking about the dearth of crime and the cold, Sherlock started thinking about being a porn star.

John said it just to while away some enforced down time. To give something to pleasantly bicker about while they waited for another case.

At first Sherlock ignored the dozen silly words. He knows John's tricks and games and ploys. He didn't need to while time away or focus or anything as boring as _distraction._

Except no matter how often Sherlock tells John he will not play a game or ponder a word puzzle or fall for a ploy, he does, he always does, because a day talk-chatter-complaining with John will always be better than the best day alone and sometimes, just sometimes, their words and games and ridiculous quarrels turn into something far more than distraction. After today he thinks maybe this one will turn into a sex aid, a catechism, a catharsis.

Or not.

Either or the thing started with one dozen words.

"In another life, I think you'd have been a porn star, Sherlock."

In the misty-slow-slowest of dull Sundays that, that foolish little lie _right_ there, was John's foray into diverting Sherlock's moodiness. And it worked. Of course it did.

Sherlock stopped pacing. He rested hands on hips. And Sherlock Holmes told John Watson exactly what he thought of those few ridiculous words.

"I would have been the best damned porn star that ever lived."

After a half dozen years together he should be used to this Sherlock-surprising- him thing, but John is not. "What now?"

Pacing the rug from one tatty corner to the next, glowering as if in so doing he'd cause the snow to cease falling and the criminals to start criminaling had officially lost its allure. Instead of thinking about the dearth of crime and the cold, Sherlock started thinking about being a porn star.

"Sex John. You know that it's about deduction as much as anything else."

Of course John knew. He's been four years married to a man who can—and will—deduce every breathing thing during every moment of its life. He had once deduced when a panda would go into heat, a thieving prime minister he had only met for three seconds and, of course, his own husband, times past counting.

"Respiration, pulse, sweat…they're bright neon signs offering detailed directions."

John is superb in bed. Has been since the third time he made love. However, he's almost always found the signs of sexual arousal to be slightly less flashy than neon, yet he agrees with Sherlock, the signs _are_ there. If you want to be better than forgettable, it's your business to become adept at reading them.

"But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?"

John wriggled his bum more deeply into the sofa cushions. Yes, there was snow, an unseasonal volume of it, yes it was very cold out, and yes, they hadn't had a case since before the new year. So John had been busy cocooning and enjoying the mild charms of take away and telly. This conversation, however, had already become an order of magnitude more satisfying than anything Channel 4 had to offer.

"We're talking about what an audience needs. A porn star doesn't necessarily have to turn on their co-star, if they even have one. As a matter of fact—"

Sherlock looked at John. There he was, tucked warm and snug and _smug_ on the sofa. He knew two things about John right now: He was interested in what Sherlock was saying and he was also playing Sherlock like a violin.

"Fine, yes, well done you, I'm diverted, I'm thinking about something other than the weather and the weak constitutions of the criminal class, who are certainly all laid low with the flu I'll be getting in three days and you'll have in six."

Sherlock, elegant in nothing but a skull-patterned, deep-purple dressing gown (John will continue buying them so long as makers of men's fine clothing keep producing these infernally gorgeous colours), stood straight and tall. The dressing gown rode up a little. John knew he'd bought the mid-thigh length for a good reason.

Sherlock left his refuge by the fireplace, was about to step onto and then over the coffee table and invade John's personal space on general principle, when he decided his point could best be made from the table's lofty height.

"As I was saying, we're talking about what an _audience_ needs aren't we, and I can't deduce strangers peering and panting over a DVD now can I?"

Sherlock tugged his satiny, pretty dressing gown primly closed.

John looked up at the man standing bare legs akimbo, and John thought he must again thank Mrs. Hudson for getting the heating man in. 221B had never been so warm and Sherlock had never worn so little right smack in the middle of an unseasonal minus five.

"Past performance is no guarantee of future return as all the financial fools always say, but the past can be predictive."

Sherlock tugged and then tied his dressing gown tighter still, then ran his hands from belly to thigh to smooth the satin. When his hands fell to his sides he waited a moment so John could admire the swell of his cocked hip, the smooth expanse of belly, the barely-there bulge all hinted below dark satin.

"If John Watson-Holmes has enjoyed the diversions of my bare body on the floor of this very sitting room, if he's spied on me masturbating in our bed rather more times than either of us can count, if he's as bored as I am with the exceptionally debatable charms of take-away and telly, I can, with some certainty, predict that the quite sexual thing I'm about to do on this table top will be warmly received to the point of the good doctor having an orgasm in his pants."

John Watson giggled his fool head off for an entire four seconds. He wriggled his bum deeper into sofa cushions, wrapped his arms around his legs, and waited.

Sherlock lifted his chin with a grin and though it was barely possible to tug the dressing gown tighter, he managed. Because Sherlock does this, this… _binding…_ thing. With shoelaces, scarves, belts, _everything._ He ties, tugs, and buckles things too damn tight and while John's used to it he can get emphatically _unused_ to it with a moment's effort should he choose, seeing his husband through the hungry eyes with which he looked at him a half dozen years ago.

So when Sherlock tugged that broad, satiny belt snug John made the small but worthy effort of looking as if he were a new lover, not a husband who, only this morning, threatened to blow his nose in _every one_ of his husband's fucking socks if the man again complained about the detergent with which his precious woolens were cleansed.

Yes. Well.

With the gaze of an unattached army doctor recently invalided home, with the appreciative scrutiny of a man who had not laid hands upon another's warm flesh for over six months…it was with _those_ eyes John Watson regarded Sherlock Holmes up there on that coffee table.

"What we don't see, what we infer can be so much more sexual than what we do, and so if I was a porn star John, I would not show the mythical, horny, hungry them _everything."_

Sherlock smoothed silk again and it showed that same curve of hip, the same sweet plane of stomach, but the barely-there swell beneath was emphatically _there_ now, a bold bulge of silk-covered flesh trying hard to rise up against the weight of the cloth covering it.

Watching John's gaze flick from that bulge to Sherlock's blue eyes and back again, Sherlock waited until they settled somewhere in between and then he ran a long-fingered hand down, down, down.

And _in._

He inhaled sharp, relief and arousal both. Briefly he stood on tip-toe, long legs so very much longer, an optical illusion, while inside that robe he pushed down with the heel of his hand, over and slowly over, until those fine legs _shook._

Hips flexing, silk flashing warm light, Sherlock pushed and pushed, meeting the pressure of his palm. Only when John groaned did Sherlock murmur, "Oh yes, mustn't forget, mmmmustn't forget….

"It's not just what we see that arouses." Out Sherlock's hand came and he licked his skin slick. "It's also what we _hear."_ When his hand tucked again between soft purple folds Sherlock sighed.

Because diversions _divert,_ Sherlock was now so caught up that he responded to his own moan with another moan. The sound of it fisted his hand hard on his silk-covered thigh, it caused the unseen hand around his cock to tug down faster.

"Did you know that what a man wants," Sherlock breathed, "changes by what a man _sees?"_ Grunting low and looking down, Sherlock became Sherlock's audience as much as John, as much as viewers that weren't there, all of it a feedback loop leading to another moan.

"Or…"

Sherlock jerked faster, causing silk to slide. Right off Sherlock's shoulder, baring his chest, his flexing bicep, the pebbled nub of one nipple. The cloth emitted a sultry light, sliding seductive over knuckles as he tugged and stroked.

"…what he doesn't see," Sherlock whispered, watching the spark of jewel-toned light, watching the slow bloom of one…two…three tiny wet spots on silk, "what he only imagines."

Sherlock jerked and pulled and there, right there, something very real: A heavy bead of sweat dripping slow down the inside of his thigh. There on the sofa John opened his mouth, there on that coffee table Sherlock dropped his chin, pink tongue flashing out.

Hips thrusting sweet and slow, shoulders curling in, Sherlock groaned and panted, "Oh oh oh _John."_ Then went still and silent.

Blood isn't quiet. It rushes and it roars, fills up ears and head, it pounds at your neck. It's never still, it floods your face and your cock and through feverish limbs, and so it did all of this and more in the bodies of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes as they hung there suspended.

By the time the noise and rushing and flooding was fading, by the time John was starting to wonder why Sherlock was still so _still,_ John saw what Sherlock wanted him to see.

Following the trail blazoned by that meandering drop of sweat, thick and slow and blood warm, Sherlock's own come dripping down the inside of his own leg.

John slid from the sofa and to his knees on the floor. He looked up.

Sherlock's tongue poked out pink and wet.

John looked at that slick of come and one, two, three…four seconds later he stepped onto that table, tongue freighted with—

"Me," Sherlock sighed, taking hold of John's head, licking into John's mouth. "And you and—"

*ping*

Sherlock Holmes stopped Frenching his husband.

*ping*

Sherlock Holmes went really, really still.

*ping*

Sherlock Holmes' mobile received its third text in as many seconds.

*ping*

Sherlock Holmes was fully aware that four—

*ping*

—five texts in a row meant a case. A—

*ping*

—really big case. However, Sherlock is forty-years-old and as such he knows that nearly nothing is so urgent that his marriage and his Joh—

*ping*

John pawed inelegantly at the spit and come dribbling down Sherlock's chin, he jumped off the coffee table and jogged toward the bedroom. "What're you waiting for you laggard, an engraved invitation? The game, Sherlock Holmes, is on!"

With a flurry of blinks, a yank on the tie on his dressing gown, and a hoot and holler, Sherlock took off after John.

The case was totally a nine.

The slow, slower, slowest thank you hand job John got—until he came in his _pants—_ after the case concluded was at least a twenty-eight.

At _least._

_—_  
_Long ago a comment by Kamerer220 had me wondering who these two might have been in another life and so, for the AU prompt porn star was, of course, a natural answer. P.S. Here is[Sherlock's purple dressing gown](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/151190049469/fic-30-days-of-sherlock-porn-star-au-pacing-the) and [its maker](http://www.newandlingwood.com/gb/skull-crossbones-silk-gown-black-red). P.P.S. It's now October and I'm not even halfway through this challenge because I am so on point it's painful._


	13. Animal, Vegetable, Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Animals:_
> 
> Sometimes being the world's only consulting detective is for the dogs... And parrots, pigs, wolves, bulls, cats, and cows. 
> 
> Yeah. _Sometimes._

Oh, sure he'd been all eager beaver about it twenty minutes ago. Ten even, before the Noah's ark-level precipitation began.

"If you say it's 'raining cats and dogs' _one_ more time John Watson, I'll do to your still-breathing body things I would hesitate to do to a day-old corpse," growled Sherlock.

John lofted his umbrella higher, hoping to cover a wider area of his own body. Instead water dripped down the back of his neck. "Well if you'd stop having a cow about how the rain's 'ruining' your crime scene, I might!"

"Now, now boys," Lestrade soothed, "can we please focus on this six foot wedding cake and the twelve headless parrots inside it?"

"If you can stop police constable Krennic from pigging out on the _evidence_ yes, yes maybe we can," snorted Sherlock.

Rain; snow; interminable coffee queues: these Greg Lestrade can cope with until the cows come home, but an evidence-eating police constable was not a sleeping dog he could let lie.

Taking the bull by the horns, the DI bellowed, "Krennic! Out! Out of this house, out of this crime scene, out out out!"

Shocked that the surrounding detectives had detected her covert nibbling, the PC stood still and wide-eyed, an eleven-stone deer caught in rain-smeared headlights.

For a mad moment Krennic thought about lying. Then a wise moment later the officer, who would give up police work to accept a position as an apprentice baker, decided to clam up and scuttle away.

Sherlock proceeded to make a beeline for the woman-sized wedding cake, paced around it once, twice, and on the third lap grinned like a cat who'd got the cream.

"I'm afraid the prospective bride has cried wolf, detective inspector, and her fiancé surely has bats in his belfry. It seems Mr. Crane thought his veterinarian-intended would be charmed by a cake containing a dozen headless psittacines…made of fondant."

Sherlock plucked up a life-like Nestor notabilis, bit off a little birdie foot, and munched thoughtfully. After a moment he said, "Krennic was on to something Lestrade. These are the bee's knees."

_—_  
_This just sort of…happened. I don't know whether to apologize, laugh like a fool, or apologize while laughing. (So yeah, this is for the animal prompt. In case that wasn't somehow inelegantly obvious.) P.S. I published this weekend, so click 'previous chapter' for a fairly long one!_


	14. Take Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Comfort:_
> 
> He's not done it since he was five-years-old. He's not thought about doing it, wanted to do it, or needed to do it. 
> 
> But John Watson's in bed, eyes closed, and he's doing it now, because life? Well it's just full of surprises.

He's not done it since he was five-years-old. He's not thought about doing it, wanted to do it, or needed to do it.

But John Watson's in bed, eyes closed, and he's doing it now, because life is just full of surprises.

It's full of moments when everything's tilted somehow, when colours look wrong, and small things suddenly loom so large a man can't see beyond them.

Right, that's not what John means to say. He can't put the feeling into words really, he only knows that sometimes he has to stop, sometimes he has to put down the burden of _care,_ of caring about Sherlock, about Mrs. Hudson and Harry, Lestrade and Mr. Chatterjee, of caring even for god damned Mycroft.

He's got to stop thinking about the Met paperwork he hates more than Sherlock does but which he's better at completing. He has to push away the fervent buzz of shoulds and woulds, of can'ts and won'ts, of worry and expectation.

Because here's the thing: John's kind of short and a bit wide for a reason. John Watson has literally been physically _made_ to carry burdens. And the beauty of that is he's _good_ at it, always has been. So for a lifetime John's lifted the loads of others, carried their secrets and their hopes, their pains and their sins.

After the war all of that went away. John could not care, he could not carry, not even the weight of his own grief.

Then there was Sherlock and John at last realised who he'd been built for. Sherlock wasn't a burden he was ballast and for John a life that had been so full of caring became one in which someone cared.

Sherlock Holmes keeps him right.

"Shhh."

John mumbles _shhh_ in reply, the sound slurred, murmured round the long pinkie nestled in his mouth.

You see, John Watson hasn't sucked on his fingers since he was a self-comforting five-year-old, fitfully awake and scared of the dark. But this morning he woke to find himself suckling the littlest finger of Sherlock's hand and for a moment he cares about that very much. Then he doesn't.

There are two reasons for that.

When John woke, sucking serenely, he'd been just that, all the way through: serene, at peace, unburdened.

And when John woke, he did so to a sleepy, grey-eyed gaze that said to him more than _it's all right, take what you need,_ it said this:

 _Let me_ give _you what you need, John._

_Let me bring you comfort._

_—_   
_So, this story is my very veering way of thanking those who've sent encouraging messages to me as I prepare to leave England in two weeks for a new life in New York. The Sherlock fandom is like no other. You share words that uplift, you offer thoughts and stories, ideas and praise, and for all of the six years we've been a fandom you've given me so much support, so, so much comfort. Thank you for that. Always._


	15. Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Fall:_
> 
> It's shaped like a fist. 
> 
> But it's not a fist.

It's shaped like a fist. It's about as big as one, too.

But the human heart is not a fist, Sherlock knows that now. A heart is not something that must hurt, no matter what Mycroft says.

For Sherlock this was a revelation but, like any good scientist, he accepts proofs once proofs are given.

And so, as he moves through the dawn-silent flat after a night at the morgue, Sherlock is able to interpret what he finds on the kitchen table.

A heart, crudely drawn on a sheet of A4. It is obviously the trace of an adult fist, with all the bumps of knuckles, the curves of palm, and where the wrist would be the drawing is closed.

In the empty space within, for no fingers were sketched inside, is one neatly-printed word:

_You_

Sherlock pushes his microscope out of his way, sits down. He smiles and he places his palm over John's love note, over John's _heart,_ for that is what this is.

Of all the things Sherlock learned after he fell in love, this was one of the most surprising:

That he would never, ever stop falling.

 _—_  
_The prompt "fall" means falling in love, if you ask me. And I'm now half through with these prompts—ha!_


	16. Go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hidden Talent:_
> 
> John wanted to holler _what the fuck_ at all of them, but you don't do that to small children.
> 
> Maybe...

John suspected that they wanted Sherlock to bone them.

What else was he supposed to think, over-hearing two giggling eighteen-year-olds muttering _Sherlock Holmes_ and _snore_ as they skulked behind his husband for half the interminable length of Baker Street?

Four days later it happened again, only it was a different set of teenagers. Same giggling though. Same street. Same proximity. And the same certainty on John's part that the kids were under the influence of a hormone surge.

Didn't matter why they followed him really, because John just did the same thing with both groups: Gave 'em the stink eye.

As it turned out he had a lot of stink eye to give, because the weird behaviour didn't stop with those teenagers, no.

Over the course of a week, then two, Sherlock was followed, in turns, by five Goth kids, three laughing women in business suits, a really tall guy who actually walked right beside Sherlock for a quarter mile, a woman and man who held hands and fell into step until they matched Sherlock's stride perfectly, as well as a woman with twins in a pram.

Every last one of these people veered away once they noticed the small tank of a man frowning at them, though the three women had waved and the one with crazy hair and a grin waggled her mobile phone before disappearing around a corner.

Things calmed down when they headed to East Portlemouth for a pleasantly-confounding case and John'll say this right now: he's never known such a small town (pop. 160) to contain so much intrigue. Still, Sherlock figured it out and that farmer will never do _that_ with oats again.

Once back in London nothing untoward happened for a week. This was because Sherlock didn't leave the flat for those seven days, content with oat-based experiments (one resulting in a really nice parkin loaf), but once Sherlock emerged again there they were.

The first set of lurkers were smart, walking ahead of them. This threw John off _and_ made his stink eye impossible.

No matter, he grabbed Sherlock by the back of his Belstaff and hauled him around a corner. He also did this after they were followed by a surly ten-year-old, the guy who looked like that famous TV chef, and the probably-was-a-model who, bold as brass, nearly shoved her mobile in Sherlock's face.

Things came to a head the day the children attacked.

All right, attack is a strong word, but the fact remains there were a dozen of them and once one gained momentum the rest seemed pulled along in her gravity.

The entire bloody complement of a six-year-old's junior football league fell against Sherlock's legs, their own spread in a sprawl across Regent's Park's dry turf. Miraculously none started crying and this was when a small revelation finally came for John.

Every last child had a mobile in hand and each was staring at it.

"Mine escaped!"

"Use a great ball!"

"I did!"

"I got mine with an ultra ball!"

"I need more razz berries!"

"Got it!"

"Mine ran off!"

John wanted to holler _what the fuck_ at all of them, but you don't do that to small children. He also wanted to help Sherlock up from out of the pile of little limbs and squeals of, "There's another one!" so John did that instead.

It was only once they were sitting on a bench and John was brushing grass off Sherlock's shoulders that the smallest of the children came over. She looked maybe four but her eyes were eight-year-old wise.

She proved her mature years when she held her hand toward Sherlock. He took it. She shook it. "Thank you," she said. "For what?" Sherlock replied.

The little girl held up her mobile. On it was a cartoon-like creature of blue-and-white. There was the word Snorlax beneath it. "It was following you around. They're really rare and have a high HP." The girl did something on her phone and then showed the screen to them again.

Standing right beside the bench on which they sat was a different creature, mostly made of what looked like tangled blue hair. John actually leaned across Sherlock to see if the cartoon character was standing beside them. It was not.

Neither suddenly was the little girl, who had run off to join her little football gang.

It was at this time John finally muttered, "What the fuck," and it was at this time Sherlock took out his own phone and began to explain Pokémon Go. This included details on lures, health points, and Snorlaxes.

The explanation took awhile and at no time did it include the words "for a case."

By the end of Sherlock's animated primer John was so charmed by his giant endearing madman that he wanted to either tease him, kiss him, or bone him.

Sherlock let him do all three.

 _—_  
_Sherlock's hidden talent, of course, is essentially being a living Poké lure for Snorlaxes. I know this is not how Pokémon Go actually works because Verity Burns has schooled me well in Poké particulars. For someone who has never played the game I am quite partial to Tangelas. Verity calls them "[Wendy's Hair](http://www.pokemongodb.net/2016/05/tangela.html)," for reasons that are obvious to those who know me._


	17. Emma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Makeup:_
> 
> Through many years as John Watson's husband, Sherlock Holmes has come to understand the powers of praise to elicit the response that you want, and so he praised. 
> 
> "Well done Mrs. Turner. If I couldn't hear you breathing I'd actually think you were dead."

"You have to sit still."

"I am sitting still."

"I'm afraid you very much are not sitting still."

"Mrs. Hudson said you'd be like this."

"Define 'like this.'"

Mrs. Turner did not deign to reply and so Sherlock knew that Mrs. Turner lied. And besides, Mrs. Hudson was holidaying in Peru.

They fell silent awhile. And then...

"Please sit _still."_

"I am!"

"Two seconds ago you shifted three times from one side of your behind to the other."

"This chair is _uncomfortable."_

"That is John's chair and as such it is the most comfortable chair in this entire building. Not this flat, Mrs. Turner, but _all_ of 221 Baker Street."

"It's squishy."

Sherlock did not say that in one second he'd go and _give_ her squishy, because Sherlock is not the sort of man who threatens physical violence. That's John's department but even if it _was_ his, even if it was, Sherlock understands that you do not sass old people. Older people. People who are older than you and not your landlady. His father would frown if he did that and Sherlock has seen exactly five frowns from his father directed his way and that was four more than he wants to see ever because Altamont Holmes not smiling means you've done Quite A Bad Thing and _there she goes again!_

"Mrs. Turner, if you persist in wriggling this will have to end."

All at once Mrs. Emma Aster Daisy Turner went still as a corpse. As Mrs. Emma Aster Daisy Turner is 79-years-old she regrettably knows about corpses. She has buried two husbands and many more than that many friends. Sherlock Holmes knows about corpses too and therefore he was impressed by Mrs. Turner's remarkable ability to imitate one.

Through many years as John Watson's husband, Sherlock has come to understand the powers of praise to elicit the response that you want, and so he praised.

"Well done Mrs. Turner. If I couldn't hear you breathing I'd actually think you were dead."

Emma Turner's received a wide range of compliments in her busy life and she's saved the best in her own well-furnished mind palace. This one from Sherlock will go just ahead of the one from an old beau.

"Darling," he had said, oh maybe a dozen years ago, "your smile is just the very sunniest thing I have ever seen. If I were not sworn to a life of malcontention due to a life of privilege, I would sing your happy charms to the world."

Yes, Sherlock's compliment will fit snug just in front of Gerald's praise, and nestle quite comfortably just behind the one she recently got on her Etsy.

Pleased with his purchase of her entire range of [penis socks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5402675/chapters/12561557), a buyer had enthused, "I love them all so much. Every single one of your handmade items fits me perfectly. Even better than my boyfriend's arse and mind you he surrounds me like a bespoke _glove!"_

So yes, anyway, now that she'd settled down Emma Turner found it easy to be still while Sherlock did what Sherlock was doing. As he worked his magic, Mrs. Turner lazily planned the next series of penis socks based off coffee shop logos when Sherlock pertly said, "Done!"

He slid back in his kitchen chair, which had been perched in front of John's comfy chair and he tilted Mrs. Turner's head left, then right. "Excellent."

Sherlock then held up a mirror so that Mrs. Turner could see her makeup. To her great surprise she looked a great deal more like Marilyn Monroe than she had expected and she didn't even have the platinum wig on yet. She was going to _decimate_ at the pre-pre-Halloween party tonight.

"Where on _earth_ did you learn to do makeup Sherlock?"

Sherlock shrugged, insouciant. As if to say _a flawless hand at mascara, eyeliner, shadow, blush, lipstick and concealer is just one tool in a consulting detective's armament_ and, while that would actually have been true, Mrs. Turner's expectant stare soon had him fessing up.

"Mrs. Hudson taught me. She once helped transform me into that Prince Harry person so I could infiltrate a larcenous yachting party. I didn't even need the ginger wig." Sherlock shrugged. "It turns out I did need the underpants with the royal insignia on them though."

Instead of asking Sherlock why he had had to show his underpants while going undercover as Prince Harry—no one who lives in Britain needs this question answered—Mrs. Turner instead asked Sherlock something else.

"Do you think there'd be a market for penis socks with the royal insignia on them?"

—  
_You know how you have times when you hear your own thoughts or read your own writing and you think WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM? Yes. Well then. There you go. P.S. Yes, Etsy has[penis socks](https://www.etsy.com/listing/244676016/crochet-sexy-mens-thong-men-thongs) and also certain people (that would be me) would be tickled pink if you [reviewed or got this](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/151794302914/atlinmerrick-in-the-night-they-met-are-stories). Think of it as an Etsy shop. Yes. With penis even!_


	18. Fettered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hand Holding:_
> 
> Sherlock raised an arm over his head, then the other. He took hold of his own hand. Pressed it hard to the bed.
> 
> He'd bound himself. With nothing _but_ himself.

Sherlock lay on their bed, naked and half-hard beneath the duvet. He breathed deep.

John was… _everywhere._

The vanilla of his shampoo on the pillow beside him. The scent of his skin on the duvet. The tannin tang of half-drunk tea on his night table.

Sherlock reached out.

John was…nowhere.

He was not in their bed, their flat. He was miles away in Brighton. Too far to touch. Too far to _get._

Sherlock turned his head, nosed at John's pillow, pushed his hips up into the duvet. It rubbed against his cock.

They've been apart longer than a day. It's not rare for one to pursue the details of a case in some distant town. It _was_ rare for Sherlock to have nothing to do while John was gone. And for the November afternoon to be too bright and too pretty. Long enough for Sherlock to grow indolent as night fell. Dreamy. _Physical._

So bare-skinned and in bed he lazily thought of, breathed in, breathed out _John._

Vanilla scent breathed in deep, deeper and…Sherlock spread his legs.

The musk of skin in lungs and mouth…he spread wider.

The scent of cold tea…Sherlock opened wider still, feet stretch-stretching toward the bed's corners as if they were being tugged-bound there.

Sherlock thrust up, rubbed against the blanket again. He raised an arm over his head, then the other. He took hold of his own hand. Pressed it hard to the bed.

From hand to foot he'd bound himself. With nothing _but_ himself.

And long body stretched violin string-tight, Sherlock humped himself to hardness against a pressure that wasn't. His skin went prickly, hot, itchy from the inside. A bead of precome dripped meander slow down the head of his cock.

Fettered, he fixated on that thick bead. He arched up, stayed there and…and…and…

When it dripped onto his belly Sherlock opened his mouth and thought, he thought, he thought he could _taste_ John, smell John, John's body his sex his _come._

Sherlock fucked up against nothing, against a duvet that was winter-heavy but not John-heavy on top of him, arse to cock, rocking down.

Fingers lacing tight Sherlock pressed his hand to the bed his heels to the mattress so hard his body shook. He pushed up at the duvet, rubbed back and forth and it was not John-heavy against his chest, pushing into him, slicker than the slick because he would be wet with lube and Sherlock's come and—

Sherlock willed the duvet denser, wanted it to weigh him down with panting and whispers. He closed his eyes tight to conjure shifts in the shadows, tighter still to hear moans, he held his breath to feel, tasted the air across his tongue and he did this and did this and Sherlock, he…

He…

He…

…slept.

*

Slipping into bed before dawn, John rested his head on his own pillow, beneath which Sherlock's long arm snaked.

Snugging his back against Sherlock's front, John smiled at the hard-on nudging warm against his arse.

He tugged the duvet up high. He twined his fingers with Sherlock's. He waited for his love to wake.

—  
_This hand holding prompt brought to you by the word duvet and Sherlock's imagination. Also this is the first fic I managed to write since moving to New York one week ago._


	19. Filling Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Date Night:_
> 
> Angelo may not be a consulting detective but he can deduce some things. Yes he can. Like when two men need to woo each other with Italian sweets.

Sometimes they need space for the nothing much that gives them time for breathing, time for words.

So Sherlock slouched in their favourite back booth at Angelo's while John read from a glossy magazine. Twice Angelo offered to serve them before the rest of the evening crowd, twice they declined, opting to stay in their soft-breathing place of no responsibilities for a little while.

"—and he may blend or stand out," John read, "there and not there. He's a chimera, a perfect phantom."

Mr. Sherlock Holmes is disinclined to metaphor, preferring certainties. The clearness of a tan line, the straightness of a back, the directness of a gaze. From these he can deduce army doctor, psychosomatic limp, _one true love._

But right now Sherlock's grey eyes glowed like the flame on their table's tiny candle as he tried so very hard not to pridefully spread metaphorical tail feathers.

John grinned and the soft light warmed that fine smile right on up to his eyes. "Should I read the rest of the article or do you want to start making fun of me now?"

The interview had caught John on a bad day, a day where he'd sniped at Sherlock again and again for reasons he couldn't even name. By the time he was with the journalist from _London_ magazine—for a puff piece they'd ended up calling _The Man Behind the Man_ —and she'd asked him to describe Sherlock, John had found himself apologising with…poetry. Likening his love to phantoms and chimeras, angels and wise men. Every last word had made it into the piece.

Sherlock sat straight up in the booth, his smile fading. "No, John," he said softly. "No."

Curious, the good doctor Watson said nothing, did nothing because, with a darting gaze, Sherlock was looking for words and sometimes Sherlock can't see if he's searching.

"That you…still see me in those ways, that you _like_ what you see, I…" Sherlock faded to silence with a shrug. He is not this family's poet.

"'Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety,'" murmured John, not for the first time nor the last. He's had five and a half years of marriage to know the truth of this matter in particular. "Sometimes I imagine I'm a room, and you've filled me. The cranky bits of you, the deductive bits. The laughing, running, sitting, cuddling, loving bits. You really are those things to me you know. Most of the time."

John grinned, self-effacing. No one completes anyone else, he knows this. And no man can unpick old scars and smooth the jagged flesh to wholeness. All a man can do is say what's true.

"I'm me and have been my whole life. Angry and funny, small and fierce, but with you I'm something else again: full up. You know? You fill me up with the funny and fierce and brilliant bits of _you."_

Sat side-by-side in their booth, Sherlock leaned close, plucked up John's index finger. "What bit of me fills up this part of you?"

"Your ears," John answered, without pause. "You hear all sorts of weird things no one else hears and my index finger is delighted with that bit of you."

Sherlock wriggled a hand under John's t-shirt and stuffed a pinky into his belly button, "Here?"

John rolled his eyes, as if the answer were obvious. "Inside that belly button are my favourite curls, those three that sometimes form across your forehead. They tickle."

"You have favourite curls."

"Don't you?"

Sherlock grinned. Of course he did. Every curly-haired person has one of their own that's a favourite.

"What's…here?" Sherlock said, twirling a finger in John's hair.

"Mmm, your gentleness." Sherlock tilted his head. John explained. "The first time you touched me—more than a fist in my collar pulling me down an alley, or a giant paw clapped over my mouth down that same alley—it was you stroking wet hair out of my eyes. You blushed, then shoved your hand in your pocket."

Sherlock kissed John's neck. "Here?"

"All your kisses are there. The ones you place on my fingertips when I'm coughing and snotty, the ones you put on my knee that Christmas I slipped on the ice, the ones you used to count."

Pressing their foreheads together John said, "And in here, in my head, there's your lispy-soft voice when you're excited, and the times you turn down a case because I don't want it, and this morning when you cuddled. Also," John whispered right against Sherlock's ear, "that time you hand-fed me sfogliatella, struffoli, and zeppole."

Sherlock shifted his gaze to the right, there seeing what he'd completely failed to observe: Tiny plates of bite-sized Italian sweets that had appeared stealthy on their table.

"That time I did that," Sherlock plucked up a wee struffola, no bigger than a marble, placed it on John's tongue, long and steady fingers lingering in the warmth. "When I put my fingers in your mouth. When I licked an imaginary crumb away," he leaned forward, dabbed at John with his tongue, "When I echoed your sigh," he sighed, "What other bits of you did those fill up?"

"Actually," John said, reaching out, covert, squeezing Sherlock's burgeoning cock. "I think this time it wasn't me who filled up."

Sherlock reached for a sfogliatella plump with citrusy ricotta, slipped it into John's mouth, his own opening wide.

"Well I certainly hope you _do."_

Across the restaurant Angelo smiled. He may not be a consulting detective but he can deduce some things. Yes he can. He ducked into the kitchen. He had a half dozen rum babas he thought the boys might like.

—  
_I love how the fandom loves the characters with smaller roles. Angelo's a favorite of mine and I really think he's his own kind of deductive genius. A candle for the table indeed. You brilliant boy Angelo._


	20. Semaphore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Pining:_
> 
> You can't miss what you've never known, so the deeply philosophical say. 
> 
> John Watson calls bull shit. Of this oft-repeated bit of 'truth' John calls unmitigated bull shit. Times fuck that noise. Multiplied by shut your gob. 
> 
> And here's why…

You can't miss what you've never known, so the deeply philosophical say.

John Watson calls bull shit. Of this oft-repeated bit of 'truth' John calls unmitigated _bull shit._ Times fuck that noise. Multiplied by shut your gob.

Because you know what? You just know what? Yes, you can miss what you've never known. Yes. You. _Can._

A man can pine for whispers he's never heard, for touches he's never felt. He can long for the press of a soul that knows his—because souls _can_ do that, they can touch and hold and _press_ one right up against the other.

You see, John Watson one hundred percent knows a man can ache for a man he's never met because John Watson _did._

He only knew that afterward though, when the ache went away. It took him months to realise it and he did it in the most inelegant way imaginable.

John told Sherlock he didn't love him.

*

"—the meds imply his blood pressure's low so that'll probably point to fainting, nothing more. Why don't you—"

John had been about to say _go ahead without me,_ but Sherlock was already turning away with a dismissive "That'snice," and bounding up the stairs to the first floor of the informant's house. John was left with his mouth open and a hand on the unconscious informer's wrist. He shrugged and went back to checking his ostensible patient.

"—well I'd say it had more to do with his condition than anything else."

Lestrade has a tendency to write notes as John and Sherlock speak. Just single word prompts he'll flesh out later. He started doing this soon after John showed up because John's a doctor. Lestrade's not. Sherlock's not. So Lestrade trusts that John knows stuff they don't.

But as John spoke Sherlock interrupted with, "ThankyouJohnitdoesn'tmatter. What you need to start focusing on Lestrade, is his sister's business partners in Manchester."

Both John and Lestrade looked at one another and neither looked at Sherlock. They'd started doing that months ago, their way of checking with each other. _You okay with the annoying git just now? Yep, thanks for asking._ Then Lestrade starting taking notes as Sherlock rattled on.

"—come on love, it's been a long day, let's warm up in the shower."

Sherlock shrugged off his coat, then scarf, throwing both on the sofa, then himself after. "Thankyounope," he said, popping the P and facing the sofa back, his own back an angry curve.

John looked at him, curled in on himself and, while he's known the man only a half year, barely four months of that as his lover, John's seen these juvenile displays often enough and understands they have nothing to do with him.

John went to shower, but before he did he went to Sherlock.

Kneeling by the sofa he did not touch, chide, or praise. Instead he softly said, "Love you," and then let Sherlock be.

Five minutes later John saw Sherlock's silhouette through the shower curtain, saw him lower the toilet lid and take a seat. He heard him mumble something. Go silent. Then stand. Go still. And start for the door.

At this point John drew the line. He would not be the only one doing the heavy lifting in this relationship.

"Sorry love?"

"Nothing," came the immediate reply.

To which came a swifter one. "Bull shit."

That stopped Sherlock's retreat _and_ riled him.

"I said I'm sorry, I'm _sorry._ I don't know why _you_ said what you did because it was a pointless thing to say after I was rude and childish." Sherlock grunted and sat again. "I'm sorry," he said, only this time John heard it because he'd long since turned off the water and opened the shower curtain. Steam enveloped Sherlock like a penitent's shroud.

"I'm not used to people…helping. I'm trying John, but I'm not good at this." Sherlock picked at a hangnail. He got nice and vicious with it. "I'm terrible, I'm an idiot. I don't know why you put up with it, I don't know why you'd love—"

"Shut up."

Sherlock shut up.

Look, John had expected his words might lead to a conversation. He hadn't expected the conversation to occur in the toilet, hadn't expected to have to cut his shower short, and so hadn't expected that when he put his hands on his hips, one of the soapy bastards would slide right off.

But you know what? You can't expect everything. You can only bull your way through and so John _bulled._

"I don't _love_ you Sherlock."

Forgetting the previous outcome, John put his hand on his hip again. It slid off. He took a deep breath. "Wait, that's the exact opposite of what I meant to say."

A festive blob of green shampoo lather slid down John's forehead and into his eye. He did not know if it was the soap itself which burned like a mother fucker, or if it was the food dye Sherlock had put in to the shampoo for some chemist-clearing experiment or other three weeks back.

Either way, John wiped away stinging foam with his shoulder and growled, "What I mean to say, if I can ever fucking _say_ it, is that it's not because I love you that I put up with your…you." John took a breath, waited to see if something would burn, slide, argue, or otherwise annoy him. Nothing did so John sat on the edge of the tub and took Sherlock's hand.

And, staring at his own wet toes, John briefly lost his words.

Because here is the thing about the good doctor Watson: He's never felt for anyone what he feels for Sherlock. He doesn't know how to phrase what he feels sometimes, how to explain that for a long time—

"I missed you."

John nodded at his now-wiggling toes. _Yes,_ they semaphored, _that's it_ , _that exactly!_ "Before you there was a you-shaped hole in my life Sherlock. And so I…I so, so missed you."

John watched his toes some more. Sherlock stopped tearing at his tattered hangnail and watched John's toes, too.

"You try, for me you try. I see that. You're really bad at it but I was bad at blood draws. And blow jobs. And not swearing." John blinked. Stopped. His toes wiggled _keep going._

"But I got better at two of those things, Sherlock. Because I wanted to. Because I needed to. Because people cared if I did." John looked up. "I care if _you_ do. Because I'm not going to miss you again, okay? I'm not. I won't."

Sherlock blinked at John's toes. Then at John. They held one another's gaze awhile because Sherlock didn't know how to say _thank you_ and _I love you_ and _I'll try harder_ so instead he leaned toward John to kiss him, placing his hand on John's thigh.

It slipped right off and so Sherlock fell forward and so John fell backward and they crashed into the tub in a tangle of swearing and soap and limbs and they laughed like drains and it was only later that John noticed he'd got a nice deep scratch on his thigh from Sherlock's fingernail and then a little bit later he realised that now he really _did_ have a Sherlock-shaped hole in him and that made John laugh again only it was half two in the morning and this woke up Sherlock who didn't see what was so funny because "John you're bleeding!" but eventually everyone calmed their shit down—Sherlock with his panic and John with his manic—and at last one man curled tight against the other and both knew for absolute certain that they will always try and even though they both will sometimes fail they will never no never again miss one another again.

Not ever.

—  
 _[Announcing announcing announcing](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/153175277919/improbably-press-is-a-for-profit-press-publishing)! Please go do the thing you know we wish you would do! As for this story: I think that along with believing John and Sherlock would have met, no matter what time and what place, they likewise would have always known beforehand that someone dear was missing—and then realised who once they found one another._


	21. A Bird in the Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Birdwatching:_
> 
> Sherlock has always loved ladybirds, right since he was the littlest boy...

Sherlock's always loved ladybirds.

Once, when he was seven years old and lying indolently on the grass in the back garden, belly full of biscuits and benediction for a universe that had created them, Sherlock fell asleep.

When he woke he did so because a ladybird had landed on his plump little cheek, her plans set firm for his nose.

In startled reflex Sherlock had reached up to brush away her tickling feet and the little not-bird took flight, landing on his hand.

Breath held for the next little bit of forever, Sherlock watched the creature's busy business over his skin, counted her freckles—twelve!—and only later learned that the little lady was very far from her natural North American home.

When she'd finally helicoptered herself away, Sherlock rose and ran after. After watching her march across the bark of a tree, he wondered why _he_ couldn't climb sideways too, like the ladybird and squirrels and he'd even seen a cat do it once. Maybe he needed claws? Sherlock made fierce little hands and dug his nails into the bark and tried to pull himself up but that didn't work and then the ladybird flew off into the sky.

Sherlock shaded his eyes and watched the little insect go until well past the time he could see her. Soon he noticed, for the very first time, the strange transparent wormy things in front of his eyes, and _that_ made him remember daddy had watered the front garden and sometimes _real_ worms came out then, so Sherlock ran off to peer around daddy's roses.

Sure enough there were a half dozen fat worms, so Sherlock squatted down on his little haunches, peering close because, though he didn't yet like slimy things for the purposes of touching, he _loved_ them for the purposes of their _wriggling_ and _these_ ones had stripes so he counted them methodically.

Which _then_ made Sherlock think of his favourite t-shirt with the blue and black stripes, which caused him to remember that he was pretty hot, so he went in the house to change into his striped t-shirt.

When he came out of his room mummy had gone to teach a class and daddy was at the kitchen table eating lunch.

Since daddy hadn't been there when mummy'd given him the biscuits before, Sherlock innocently clasped his hands behind his back and said in a high, piping voice (only a little bit fake), "Can I have three biscuits please?" knowing that he'd be offered two but, if he asked for two, he'd be offered one and the one time he'd tried for four he'd got _none,_ so he didn't do _that_ twice.

Perfectly aware of Sherlock's seven-year-old ploys, Altamont Holmes plucked two biscuits from his shirt pocket and handed them to his littlest boy.

"Thank you," shouted Sherlock as the back door slammed behind him and a couple minutes later he was stretched out on his belly in the back garden, nibbling and watching two ladybirds crawling around in the grass. One of them was kind of on the back of the other and he wondered what _that_ was about. He should ask daddy. It was _then_ that Sherlock noticed an ant crawling over a crumb of his biscuit, and _then—_

"What're you smiling about?"

Sherlock sighed his eyes open, shading his eyes just in time to watch a ladybird fly off his cheek. He sighed again, rolled over on park grass and onto John's back.

He tugged the neck of John's striped t-shirt down a little, nuzzled his nose into twelve freckles. "I was birdwatching."

Resting his head on his arms, John wiggled a little, murmuring, "And that gives you a stiffy does it?"

Sherlock nibbled at skin sweeter than any biscuit and murmured back, "Apparently so."

 _—_  
_So while researching for this birdwatching prompt, I learned there's a worm curator at the Natural History Museum in London. Her name? Emma Sherlock. P.S.[This thing we have done](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/153261923619/miss-blossom-presentsa-murmuring-of-bees-ebook)? All formats available now!_


	22. See-Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Rainy Day:_
> 
> In some unvisited corner of Sherlock's mind palace lives the sure and certain knowledge that he is not opaque to John, not even one little bit.
> 
> However, Sherlock does enjoy his own private little deceptions and one is that, if he doesn't want John to be aware of his motives for a thing, John will not be aware of his motives for a thing.
> 
> Like so…

Sherlock pretends he's opaque to John.

In some unvisited corner of his mind palace lives the sure and certain knowledge that he is _not_ opaque to John, not even one little bit, but Sherlock does enjoy his own private little deceptions and one is that, if he doesn't want John to be aware of his motives for a thing, John will not be aware of his motives for a thing.

Like so:

Sherlock continues to pretend John hasn't realised that, when they've jerked each other off and their bellies are a mess, or when there's a wet spot on the bed that needs blanketing, well Sherlock usually reaches for _John's_ shirt or trousers to provide the clean up or the cover.

Sherlock also makes as if John has no clue that when they first got together the good detective practiced kissing Rory, the skull on the mantle. Despite understanding right down to the devious dart of his eyes that this is a falsehood, Sherlock will forever pretend that John did not catch him at it twice in the first week they were lovers.

Likewise, when it's raining and the good doctor reflexively offers his hand as Sherlock steps over a puddle or holds his umbrella in his non-dominant hand so that he can be sure its canopy is shared, Sherlock likes to think John hasn't realised that he accepts every one of these unnecessary courtesies not because he needs them but because right from the start he noticed John only offers them to those he loves.

Finally, there is one way in which Sherlock is, indeed, completely mysterious to John and that is during those rainy days. After his short knight has unnecessarily rescued him from small puddles and barely-wet steps, Sherlock warms his own dressing gowns and t-shirts by their fire, this by way of enticing John to slip on Sherlock's over-large clothes and pad about the flat looking perfect.

—  
_This rainy day prompt brought to you by a bright day and too much coffee. And this "[A Murmuring of Bees](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/153175277919/lobster-paddington-present-to-youbees)" link brought to you by me and my glee._


	23. Vis-à-Vis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Star-Gazing:_
> 
> Now there are a few things John Watson—who might as well be a lump of coal for all the looking at him the woman has done so far—knows about his lover of the past year...

"Are you Sherlock Holmes?"

A forkful of beans halfway inside his mouth, Sherlock Holmes paused. Reflexively his gaze twitched left then right, as if there might be…some other Sherlock Holmes nearby?

Putting his fork down, Sherlock looked up. Beside their table stood a tall woman clutching a newspaper. She smiled at Sherlock politely, shifted to let three construction workers squeeze past to one of Speedy's small back tables, then added, "I'm sorry, I don't want to be a bother."

Beans and the rest of a fry-up cooling on his plate, Sherlock might ordinarily have said, "Yes, well I believe that ship has sailed," when the woman said, "It's just that I'm a forensic biologist, focusing on the necrobiome, and I find your intuitive grasp of these topics vis-à-vis crime-solving absolutely fascinating."

Now here are a few things John Watson—who might as well be a lump of coal for all the looking at him the woman has done so far—knows about his lover of the past year.

Sherlock Holmes is a chemist.

Like most chemists, Sherlock is a teensy bit in love with things no one else can see. These include _Bacteroides, Lactobacillus_ and _Ignatzschineria_ , and other invisibles which can be found in proliferation upon or near a rotting corpse.

Sherlock Holmes is susceptible to flattery.

You could tell Mr. Holmes that he is the most beautiful man in all creation and, unless you're John Watson, he will huff dramatically while lofting his wrist to his eyes, staring pointedly at a watch he's not wearing. However, brown-nose about Sherlock's _brain_ and you can literally watch his chest puff up pouter pigeon-like.

Finally, Sherlock Holmes has a teensy crush on language.

If there's one grammatical trope a stranger might employ in conversation so as to catch Sherlock's attention, it is using vis-à-vis so precisely that even the accent can be heard.

John Watson—still a lump of coal apparently—went on to know a few things about the woman standing beside their restaurant table.

She'd only recently gained her doctorate. John knows from experience that it takes at least a solid year for the pinched, haunted expression to fade from the faces of newly-minted doctors.

She was at least two inches taller than Sherlock. This had nothing to do with anything other than that Sherlock responds well to women who tower. John has not pointed this out to him. John is not sure why.

Finally the most interesting thing John knew about the woman—

"My name is Asnia Kapor Singh, Mr. Holmes. Though probably I should call you doctor, what with the depth of your knowledge."

—was that she was absolutely bloody star struck.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes stood up. Fast-blinked a bit. Shook Dr. Asnia Kapor Singh's hand. They talked. Mostly about a fascinating spate of articles on _Osedax mucofloria._ Then, at the doctor's request, Sherlock signed the two-page profile about him in the newspaper she carried. The profile Dr. John Watson had written. About Sherlock. Dr. Singh did not ask John to sign it. John imagined most people didn't expect any sort of penmanship from coal.

The detective followed the doctor to the counter, where she bought him a coffee. John grinned and watched them talk. And no, no he wasn't even a little bit jealous.

Because John Watson's ego is a healthy thing. Its seed was planted long ago, watered by family, friends, lovers, and his own accomplishments.

Sherlock though…oh Sherlock. In many ways his ego was still seedling-small, delicate-fragile. John tends it, he waters it, but he will ever be grateful when others see what he sees: Sherlock's genius, his heart, his _rarity._

Though this is the first time Sherlock's come face-to-face with a star struck fan, John suspects it will not be the last. He can only hope all are as charming as Dr. Singh.

In future though he'd rather they wait until _after_ breakfast.

John hates cold beans.

—  
_As with my[Techienician story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7930627/chapters/20111980) that used the star-gazing prompt, I decided to make it mean people gazing at media stars. Plus I realize I've written very little about the early days of Sherlock's fame and how he responded. I should probably rectify that._


	24. Prescription Filled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sickness:_
> 
> …and, Mrs. Hudson, please ignore John's requests for junk food as he will obsessively cram the lot into his mouth all at once. 
> 
> If he has a flu which includes being sick, you do not want to see the results when vomitus includes a package of wine gums and digestives. That time in 2013 still haunts me. 
> 
> Sincerely,  
> Sherlock Holmes

There are things John Watson needs when he is sick. And John is often sick.

He gets colds twice yearly. He is also laid low with the flu despite getting a flu jab. This is because Sherlock does _not_ get a flu jab, gets influenza every year, mutates it inside his person, then with beneficence he gives this new disease to John.

So yes, there are things John Watson needs when he is sick and Sherlock's got a list. He's just now given it (abridged) to Mrs. Hudson, who will take care of John for the thirty-six hours Sherlock expects he'll devote to chasing a gem thief through Beijing Capital airport.

Like so:

Dear Mrs. Hudson,

Following are John's requirements when he is under the weather. Please follow the instructions carefully, no matter what John says. I will bring you the special 'tea' you requested but please tell Mr. Chatterjee I'm not carrying horse milk liquor on my person no matter how many free coffees he offers.

Sincerely,

Sherlock Holmes

John Watson's Cold and Flu Requirements

* Lemsip

Stir the Lemsip into hot water, with honey or whiskey or both. Do not buy the inexpensive lemon medicines. John will know. Seriously, I've tested this and he knows.

* Pot noodle

Bring the soup to him so hot it burns the tongue. If the cup of noodles is not actively boiling when John sees it he will pout, roll over, and refuse to talk to you for twenty minutes.

* Magazines

This is the most difficult request to fulfill as the magazines John Watson reads when ill _will make a healthy person infirm._ He prefers: Hello! OK! Celebrity Now! and any other newsstand atrocity with punctuation on its masthead.

* Lucozade

Here John is unexpectedly flexible. If there is no Lucozade available buy strawberry Ribena. If you happen to mix either of these with a dose of Lemsip he will clap in childish delight. The resulting concoction smells like baby sick so try not to be in the room while he drinks.

* Kisses to the forehead

This seems self-explanatory. It is not. If you're me, Sherlock Holmes, the kisses must be firm, lingering, and "sweet, so I can feel those pretty lips."

When asked, John has said that if anyone else kisses him "it better be cousin kisses." These he defined with a hand-wavy gesture and the terms, "normal," "nice," "just regular." Let this vagary be your guide.

* Avoid wine gums, chocolate digestives, Dairy Milk (fruit & nut), crisps

Ignore John's requests for any of these which he will obsessively arrange, then cram into his mouth all at once. If he has a flu that includes being sick—he usually does—you do not want to see the results when vomitus includes a package of wine gums and digestives. That time in 2013 still haunts me.

Items Sherlock Holmes redacted from Mrs. Hudson's list include (these items appear only on his own):

* Show John online pornographic films with the sound off and narrate the action; this leads to mutual orgasms and has been proven to lower a fever.

* Finger John to orgasm when congestion is so bad he can only breathe by mouth; this leads to an orgasm which more-or-less knocks John unconscious for a very restful five hours.

* Do all fire-based experiments while John is unconscious.

Nowhere on Sherlock's list of care instructions is the most important remedy when John is sick, but that's all right, Sherlock remembers it. He always will.

* Love John.

Do this especially when he has sneezed in your eye. Or wiped his nose on your second-best dressing gown. Even when he's wiped it on your _first._

Tell John you like mucus. Tell him his hair is not sticking up in the back. Tell him his nose isn't red and crusty. Tell him he'll be good as new tomorrow.

Lie down beside John. Kiss his forehead. Press your cheek to it. Hum a tuneless sort of tune.

When you both wake up because he's just sneezed in your eye, tell John the absolute truth of the matter.

"I love you John Watson."

Then start again from the top of the list.

—  
_I wanted to write something bright and cheerful for sickness because, oddly, I wanted to thank everyone who still reads my stories. I published my first Sherlock fan fiction, "Black and Blue," 7 December 2010. You've made so many good things happen with your comments and your love. But please, no vomit. That's John's department. P.S.[X](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/153175277919/5-december-5-author-photos-and-the-official)._


	25. Missing Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Missing Home:_
> 
> When John is gone he leaves instructions on how to care for Sherlock. 
> 
> Fortunately Sherlock's friends ignore them completely.

John means well, he does.

When the good doctor goes away for a case or conference, John helpfully gives…let's call them instructions. To friends. Yes, 'instructions.' On how to take care of Sherlock Holmes while he is away.

The thing is, Mrs. Hudson? Molly Hooper? Greg Lestrade? The people to whom John gives these directives? They've all known Sherlock longer than John. Years and years longer.

So when John tells these fine people he's going away for forty-two hours exactly and gives them the military time of his return, then suggests ways in which each can occupy Sherlock during that time, well, each of these fine people can be forgiven for fucking _ignoring John_ completely.

Mrs. Hudson's good about it of course. She nods at John, promises that if Sherlock's out of sorts she'll take good care. She'll bake Banoffee brownies, Bakewell tarts, oat biscuits fat with sultanas and walnuts.

Because baking used to do the trick, where the trick was to prevent Sherlock shooting, shouting, or shoving badly-decayed body parts into her bins.

But John came along and messed all that up, didn't he?

Now there was only one way to derail a strop brought on by "my own cold feet in the bed," or "not at all how _he_ makes the tea," or "I just…miss him." Only one.

Mrs. Hudson lies.

"I know biscuits and tarts," she said that first time John was away. "But these macaron things just go _wrong._ You've said cooking's just chemistry, but…"

She'd walked away in disgust that first time, as if even _chemistry_ couldn't solve her dreadful _macaron_ dilemma.

Yes, well.

Through this stratagem Mrs. Hudson has successfully managed to keep her bins bare of body parts and her walls unmolested. Over the years and while John is away Sherlock and she have baked every challenging sweet she can find, from éclairs to baklava, soufflés to lemon meringue to plum puddings. They have baked a wedding cake (for the anniversary of the Married Ones) and a tower of Napoleons so luscious Sherlock ate _six._ She's got a little book of a dozen more recipes and thinks next time they'll try baked Alaska.

Meanwhile it amuses Mrs. Hudson that in the last five years Sherlock's put on two and one half kilos and John still doesn't know why.

As for Dr. Molly Hooper, well, she has her own ways of managing a manic Holmes, though she didn't come by her technique as quickly as did Mrs. Hudson. Still, Molly takes care of Sherlock in a way no one else can.

The good doctor tells him things.

Things he does not know, things he will never know because Sherlock only knows bodies that have known horror. He pokes and prods at anomalies, he peers at the exceptional and the never-seen-again.

Molly knows things far more useful. About bodies she knows what leads to where that points to which or when or how. She knows how to find the unusual behind the usual.

Which is to say that Molly Hooper's much smarter than Sherlock Holmes about some things, and so when the man is fitful, and when this small friend who never left him even when he wished she would, well when she has time, Molly calls him to her morgue and tells him strange, dark tales about human flesh and human bone.

She points here, there, at this and that, and shows him the near-impossible things a body can do and the things it very much can't, and when she does this _he_ does what he's not known for doing: Sherlock listens. He learns.

That's only half of it though.

When Molly tells him things, tells him peculiar things…Sherlock realizes that she's like he is. She is strange. Smart. Familiar with the darkest dark.

And so he isn't alone there.

Of his three closest friends, Greg Lestrade's arse is the one John rides hardest when he's out of town and Sherlock is left _in._ Many more times than once, John's been in the stall of a public toilet at his arrival airport, calling Lestrade about a Sherlock-worthy crime he read about on the trip over.

An experienced officer who's seen and heard things ungodly, who has talked down the mad and the manic, Lestrade says nothing about what he hears during these calls while carefully saying everything John needs to hear to terminate the call as soon as possible.

Then Lestrade ignores everything John said, he grabs some wine and a stack of files and he visits Sherlock.

Occasionally there are cold cases in that stack of files, but to be honest cold cases are _cold._ Lestrade usually has something better than the cold. Lestrade brings Sherlock closed cases.

Cases _Sherlock_ closed.

Over their first glass of wine Lestrade talks about the first class physics degree recently earned by the kidnapped girl Sherlock saved six years back. Shows him the photo she emailed him, her dad beaming. Over the second glass Greg tells Sherlock about the old Pakistani couple who opened a music school for poor kids, after selling the business from which their accountant had embezzled a fortune—a fortune Sherlock found.

Greg goes on in this fashion for as long as a second bottle lasts or until Sherlock's received three texts.

When that happens Lestrade smiles and rises to let himself out, while Sherlock rings the man who texted him. It doesn't matter how speedily Lestrade collects his coat and those files, he always manages to hear Sherlock purr down the line, "John Watson you filthy, filthy man…"

Right. So.

For all the years he will love Sherlock—and that is _all_ of his years—John will miss Sherlock while he is away and he will worry about him and he will try and care for him from afar.

The thing is, even when Sherlock didn't think he did he had friends. Friends that then and now will care for him in the ways that each is able.

Over the years John will come to understand this certainty down deep and he will learn to worry less. Though he'll never learn how not to miss him when he's gone. His beautiful madman. His Sherlock. His home.

—  
_In its own way this is John's list for caring for Sherlock while he's away. I find it comforting that Sherlock's friends have been there well before John. They stuck by when no one else did. Sherlock is loved. That's the most comforting thing of all.  
_


	26. Then & Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Before They Met:_
> 
> A month or two before John and Sherlock met, they both stood in roughly the same place at the same time. 
> 
> This is the story of that day.

_Then_

For almost three years Sherlock was a cutter. He put sharp things to his pale and pretty flesh for one reason only: because it let out some of the pain.

The cuts were a beautiful distraction, a release, a relief, and so for nearly three years Sherlock made his body endure small tortures so that he could stay sane, so that he could _think_ without wanting to fling himself in front of a train.

By the end of those years, when he'd finally started the long journey toward taming the torrent of images and thoughts and deductions in his head, he didn't need to do that any more.

_Now_

Sometimes John counts the scars on Sherlock's thighs and arms. He stops himself when he realizes what he's doing, but even after all these years he has a sneaking suspicion he hasn't found them all. They're tiny, most of them, he can cover each with the pad of his pinkie, but there are a few scars that are deep, long, and raised, as if in this place Sherlock cut many times.

Another thing John reflexively does is kiss those scars, those bigger scars that he imagines hold old pain. Once he bit one and that twisted something sharp inside Sherlock, made him thrash, and then made him laugh. They had aggressive sex after that, both of their bodies raw with one another's marks by the time they came.

_Then_

They'd secured an area near the Pech River, so leaders of a restructuring team could meet about local development projects. When John and his medical team finally joined the rest of the unit, he'd looked at the high drifts of trash pressed up against stone walls, the litter of rocks and broken concrete everywhere and thought, "Develop _what?"_

Four days later, back bent badly over one of those chunks of concrete, John lay on dry and dusty ground, silent, sobbing, and shaking as blood poured from his shoulder. He was afraid to call out, afraid the sniper would finish what they'd started. For one endless minute John Watson started dying.

_Now_

Reputedly some people can smell electricity. Well, Sherlock's pretty sure he can smell nightmares. Not his own (they come when they come), but John's? Oh yes, he can sense those a mile off.

There's only one truly terrible nightmare John has, but it's probably the only one you need in a roster of bad dreams: A dream about dying. Alone. When Sherlock smells nightmare on John—mix equal parts anxiety, weariness, and physical pain—he stops whatever experiment he's doing and goes to bed when John does.

John never has nightmares if Sherlock's in bed, hip against hip, hand to heart, lips to throat, it doesn't matter how they touch or even if they do, so long as Sherlock's there.

_Then_

A month or two before John and Sherlock met, they both stood in roughly the same place at the same time.

The Wellcome isn't a museum really, it's not a gallery, it's something in between, but what it mostly is is a distraction. A walk from Baker Street, a short tube ride to Euston station, each man could get there without thinking and each could wander through the medical collections, the library, the exhibits, and pretend, for as many hours as necessary, that he had something to do.

So they often did and one time they did it on the same day. They looked at the collection of sex totems, the bound books inside which DNA code unspooled, the exhibit with the tiny bird skeletons. They drank too many coffees, each ate a pastry very slowly in the bustling cafe, and both men looked into the eyes of strangers and wished those strangers were friends.

John Watson and Sherlock Holmes went home about the same time, stepped into their quiet flats, alone and lonely, and life went tick-tock forward.

_Now_

"If you grope me one more time John Watson I will tell the curator."

John nestled more deeply into a fat pillow and shoved his socked feet more deeply under Sherlock's arse.

"I'm not groping you. I _am_ wet and cold _because_ of you though, so you can tell the curator on me all you like. She'll probably kick me out into the rain because she's sweet on you."

John said this with great cheer, nestling deeper into his giant pillow. Sherlock made a harumphing noise at his husband. _Probably_ the curator was sweet on him, yes. And yes John _was_ groping him with his damp-socked toes jammed between Sherlock's bum and Sherlock's pillow. And definitely yes, John was wet because Sherlock had 'wanted to look at a thing, just humour me John.'

And John had humoured Sherlock and Sherlock saw the thing and the thing was cool and afterward they were wet and now they were drying off and meantime there were huge pillows on which to recline while they did and Sherlock's belly was full of three coffees and two muffins—he couldn't pick between the caramel and the blueberry and so John bought him both and so Sherlock kissed him with tongue right there in front of the security guard and everything.

In a little while, when Sherlock was a little bit drier and he could be bothered to move from his big, big comfortable pillow and he was bored with listening to John giggle over the book he was reading and he was done suffering through John's endlessly-wiggling toes under his arse, and had something better to do than bridge the gap between their chubby pillows by holding John's hand, then, at that point, Sherlock would go and get himself yet another latte.

Sherlock closed his eyes.

Then becomes now, it always does. Time moves tick-tock forward and if a man moves forward with it, striving in whatever way he can, he will find that the pains of the past turn hazy, replaced eventually by the joys of the present.

All he must do is keep trying. And hoping.

Sherlock sighed deep and held John's hand tighter.

He never did get that fourth latte.

—  
_The Wellcome Collection is in London, across the road from Euston Station and it has[big fat pillows on which to lie](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/154852310664/fic-30-days-of-sherlock-then-now-before-they) and read the books that are in the reading room. It has slices of human beings, too, and it has old medical equipment. Much of that sounds horrid but it's the precise opposite. It's a very good place to pass time. It's a good place to learn some weird things on a rainy day. It's a good place to hope and any place like that is worth its weight in gold. Here's hoping you have such a place or that you search until you do. Always find a way to hope._


	27. On a Midnight Dreary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Siblings:_
> 
> John Watson doesn't know what 'family' means.
> 
> Sherlock Holmes teaches him.

One January night, tipsy and in a temper about Harry "God Damn" Watson, John Hamish Watson claimed loudly that he did not "understand what the word 'family' even means."

This sentiment was embellished with a swear, a sweeping arm that spilled some gin, and an assumption he was talking to himself.

He was not.

"Family," intoned a lanky comma curled on the sofa, "splits a Sussex Pond Pudding even when one member claims it is 'his second most-favourite dessert _ever'."_

Turning from frowning viciously at the fire, John instead frowned crankily across the sitting room at Sherlock. Despite himself the good doctor remembered not only that time he'd magnanimously split his almost-favourite dessert with his fluish husband, but also recalled a Christmas night Harry had shared with her sniffly little brother a secret cache of iced biscuits.

"With grace and kindness," continued Mr. Loquacious, "family puts up with you even when you're a petulant little shit whining over someone else's toys."

John blinked ruminatively at the couch and despite himself remembered soothing a sniping Sherlock when Lestrade closed a stunning case without a jot of help from them, then recalled all the times Harry loaned him her Game Boy because he'd snottily moan how "unfair' it was Harry's birthday came before his.

"They keep your secrets, does family," said Sherlock, uncurling from his comma as John drifted toward the sofa, watery gin forgotten on the mantle.

Each remembered covering for the other that time Mrs. Hudson accused them of stealing her fresh-baked black bun, and both recalled how Harry had cried hopelessly right in this room, making them promise they wouldn't tell Clara.

"And family," whispered Sherlock, as John slumped down beside the sofa, settling a heavy head against Sherlock's ribs, "shouts over unkind words that threaten to undo you."

John bellowing at a journalist mocking Sherlock on the steps of City Hall, Sherlock roaring at a coked up punk at a party, insulting John's writing, Harry yelling at a neighbour teasing 'the short kid.'

"Family," Sherlock whispered into John's hair, "screw up and disappoint. They say cruel things when they're miserable. They hurt us when they hurt themselves."

A tear slicked down John's nose.

"But family stays. Through it all, they stay. They're ours and we're theirs and we know it. I think the knowing is what family is. You're not alone. You're part of. You belong."

John nodded and sniffled and felt a little bad about mucusing Sherlock's shirt.

"Now, let's do what family does. Let's go raid Mrs. Hudson's cupboards for the makings of an Eton mess." Each man remembered how much they'd guilt-giggled the last time they stole into Mrs. Hudson's kitchen while she slept, and each recalled how much John really, really loved his _first_ most-favourite dessert.

And what they usually do with it.

 _—  
Family is sometimes made by blood and sometimes by bond. If we're lucky we know both. Let your family, whoever they are, help you when you hurt please. Going it alone—depression, grief, fear—is never the answer. Let the people who love you _ love _you. Please ask for help when you need it._


	28. The Book of Common Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wedding:_
> 
> John Watson cried on his wedding night. 
> 
> Sherlock Holmes made sure of that.

John Watson cried on his wedding night, Sherlock Holmes made sure of that.

They really should have expected it, but both men had forgotten that stress, even the very best kind, can set off John's shoulder. Though neither man forgot what had to be done once the pain set deep.

"Get on the bed John."

So without a word John Watson did as he was told.

It was not their bed, in their home, or even in their city. It was a lovely bed in a lovely inn on their wedding night and so they could be forgiven for having expected love making, whisper-talking, deep sleep.

Instead Sherlock crawled onto the duvet, to John's back, and he took a deep, long breath before doing what he was about to do.

That first time he did this, Sherlock had felt so guilty he hadn't looked at John for an hour after. The second time he fretted before and whispered a babble of what sounded like nursery rhymes after. The third time Sherlock growled low and aggrieved.

It got a little easier once he stopped penitently pacing the bedroom each time and instead let John curl against him in their bed. That was when he finally felt the fever of John's pain fading, when he knew that what he did was in some way right.

Though when he's doing it…

When Sherlock's pressing John to the bed, holding him down with his own big body, inexorably pulling pulling pulling at John's bad arm because his shoulder aches, because he's shaking with a hurt that's burrowed deep, well still Sherlock feels guilty each time.

Because each time John fights. But he fights it in the way John fights everything, in silence, holding the misery trapped between thin-pressed lips and tight-shut eyes.

Then, as Sherlock pulls hard and harder, leans heavy and heavier, John starts to struggle. He tries to stay still and bear the pain, but he loses that fight every time.

About a minute in he starts making noise. A hiss, then a whimper. Another minute in and there are indistinct and guttural words. A few seconds later these turn into what they were always going to be.

Begging.

"Jesus fuck oh god please oh please."

About then John fights fighting the hardest, and it's then Sherlock's sure he can feel adrenalin and cortisol spike the fever in John's skin and if he leans close he'll smell it in acrid sweat and hot tears.

Tears.

It is their wedding night and John is crying on the bed in their tiny inn far from home and for the first time, for the very first time, Sherlock doesn't feel bad about this.

            _With my body I honour you_

Because a dozen hours ago Sherlock made promises in a voice both deep and soft.

            _All that I am I give to you._

He'd held John's hand in his and as he said the words he felt the tremour in John's hand and knew even then what would need doing later. Knew that instead of making love with John through a long night he would be called on to do something else entirely.

_Will you love him, comfort him?_

And so Sherlock does it, gives what love and comfort he can to John there on a thick duvet in a warm room, their bodies still bare after a too-hot shower that did not stop the pain. While John weeps and tries so hard not to fight, Sherlock tugs and twists his bad arm and whispers "John, John, John."

            _Will you_ _honour and protect him?_

At last something slip-slides inside muscles deep, a place wound tight lets go, and John stops struggling all at once. He sighs and goes soft-boneless.

Sherlock slips from his back and curls up beside him, their limbs tangling.

In the peace afterward Sherlock imagines he can smell the oxytocin and dopamine on John's flesh, that with a dance of fingers he can trace their floodpath from brain to spine to the nerves in John's arm.

In the silence that comes once John sleeps Sherlock smiles, his mouth against John's cooling skin and he nods a little, just a tiny bit.

_I will._

Ever and always.

—  
_I've always loved[this artwork from doublenegativemeansyes](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/156612519154/fic-30-days-of-sherlock-the-book-of-common) and this is what I visualised as I wrote this story. The vows come from The Book of Common Prayer.  
_


	29. A Delicate Frame of Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Glasses:_
> 
> As far as Sherlock is concerned every pair of glasses in the house belong to John Watson.
> 
> John Watson knows that of the forty-eight pair they will go through in the history of their marriage forty-three of those will belong to Sherlock.

Despite eventually needing vision correction to the tune of 3.5+ in one eye and 4.0+ in the other, Sherlock Holmes will never own a pair of glasses.

Through his long marriage to the world's only consulting detective, John Watson will own forty-eight.

There is a reason for this.

That reason _is_ this: John's pally with their optometrist. Every couple years, when he and Sherlock get the glaucoma tests and the cataract tests and the vision tests and whatever other newfangled thing the NHS wants of their orbs, well after that they leave their doctor's premises and go home.

This is where the pally bit comes in.

After they're ensconced and Sherlock's passed out—subsumed under a flood of oxytocin because that puff of air in his eyes always stresses him _right_ the fuck out and John always advises an orgasm and a banoffee cupcake—well after that John calls their eye doctor and orders his own frames but with Sherlock's prescription.

Now the thing is, John's vision is better than Sherlock's and his needs are perfectly well serviced by a nice 1.75+ but you know what? Owl eyes and holding his reading material unnaturally close are small prices to pay so John doesn't have to see Sherlock squinting at a newspaper hard enough to cause an eye twitch; so that Sherlock can actually read the fine print on the insulting note left by his current-favourite psychopath; so that Sherlock doesn't again put his dick in John's eye instead of John's mouth.

(Sherlock claims that had nothing to do with bad vision and everything to do with John's unexpectedly cold hands.)

Anyway, as far as Sherlock is concerned every pair of glasses in the house belong to John Watson, and he never questions why each suits his eyeglass needs—a need which he will deny until the day he is dead—so perfectly that he once spent a long weekend rereading a four-volume manual on picking the lock of everything from a jumbo jet to a child's diary, with nary a single eye spasm.

And John's just fine with all of that. He's less fine with how often Sherlock seems to break, lose, or otherwise damage every pair of spectacles _ever._

Because know that Sherlock Holmes has set fire to glasses _he was wearing at the time,_ dropped a pair into the Thames while trying to deduce an oil smear, watched a fox run off with a pair, and dropped a pair into the thoracic cavity of a plague-infected corpse, another into the fecal matter of an incontinent horse and the less said about the vomit of a set of nervous triplets the better.

But again, John's pretty much okay with all of this unpleasantness so long as he can eventually unearth at least one pair of spectacles from beneath the bed clothes or under Sherlock's sofa-lazy rump.

Though John's not best pleased with the pair perched on his nose now, taped up the middle, missing a stem, and once the property of a corpse—"I assure you she didn't care if I borrowed them, John"—but since this is the first day he's had to himself in three weeks all John Watson asks is that he be allowed to sit with his three-week old Sunday _Times,_ drink tea, enjoy a package of really good biscuits, and have a nice nervous breakdown like a civilised man.

So really, it's fine, it's all fine, whatever frames he has on his face are _fine_ so long as he can see out of at least one eye.

Right. So. He's got tea steeping, Sherlock hasn't cut up his newspaper (John's long since learned to not see his husband's snide handwritten comments in newspaper margins), and now all he needs is that lovely packet of…

…that lovely…

…that…the…

_"Sherlock fuckin' Holmes-Watson where the fuck are my fucking biscuits?"_

—  
_Head canon's a funny old thing. I don't know when I decided Sherlock pretends his eyes aren't getting older but decide that I did, years ago. All right. One more entry to this series later this week and a series of prompts meant to span a month but which stretched across six will be done. Your comments, of course, will be doted upon._


	30. Maureen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eyes:_
> 
> Maureen Vernet Holmes was a curious child who grew into a woman of certainty and focus. She studied, travelled, wrote, she married late, birthed two boys. Boys whom she taught the art of observation by herself closely observing. 
> 
> Though each child learned the basics of their art at mummy's knee, one was far more receptive to her particular fascinations than the other.
> 
> "Fire, Sherlock, is all about _chemicals."_

His eyes. His eyes. _Her_ eyes.

While Sherlock and Mycroft's eyes are rare, seeing things no one else can, those boys were not the first.

Maureen Vernet Holmes was a curious child who grew into a woman of certainty and focus. She studied, travelled, wrote, she married late, birthed two boys. Boys whom she taught the art of observation by herself closely observing.

Though each child learned the basics of their art at mummy's knee, one was far more receptive to her particular fascinations than the other.

"Fire is all about chemicals," mummy said to her littlest. "It's about oxygen in the air, it's about when the volatile atoms of a fuel—be it wood, petrol, or that nasty cotton-blend dress mummy has never liked—release their energy in a chain reaction of oxidation. Isn't that wonderful?"

He hadn't yet been as old as all the fingers on one hand but to little Sherlock it had been more than wonderful. It had been magic.

"Oh stop pouting, Sherlock, it's fine. I'm eighty-three and I've just worn them out a bit haven't I? I'll be fine. Hand me the jam."

Sherlock shook away memory, did not ask his mother which of the six jams she wanted from the little wicker basket, for Maureen Vernet Holmes believed only in fig. Buttering her grown boy's toast, then her own, Maureen took a seat beside him at her big farm-kitchen table.

"Your father's been my right hand man for so long that really nothing will change, we will go on as we've always done."

Maureen tutted, brushed a tear off Sherlock's cheek with a quick flick of fingers. "Now stop crying about my bad eyes and eat your toast. I plan on seeing you fat before I go completely blind."

Sherlock took a deep breath and nodded, but found he could not reach for his toast nor could he stop crying. His mother took gentle hold of his wrist. "It is frightening a little, but I have your father, Sherlock, never forget that. He is…he'll take care. And when my sight goes, I won't forget the things I've seen." Mummy Holmes rested a hand on her son's cheek. "All the beautiful things I've seen."

It wasn't until many weeks later that Sherlock's sadness changed.

It got worse.

Because after mourning for his mother, he began to mourn for himself.

They'd been in Regent's park for an hour. By the quality of his pacing—slow enough that John could keep up—the good doctor knew there was something on Sherlock's mind.

"I'm enjoying this constitutional love. I now recognize four individual ducks and we've begun to nod in a neighbourly fashion. So. Tell me what you're thinking about and I know it's not the Mustard King or the toxic fumes that supposedly took out his business rival."

It took a few moments for Sherlock to return to him, and then he did what John knew he would: Started in the middle. "I'm like her, John, don't you see? I inherited her crooked smile, her eye colour, her genius, why wouldn't I inherit the rest of it?"

Dr. John Watson knew that the cell dance which gives us graces like mummy's eyes and daddy's height does indeed sometimes also give us a tendency to grey early like daddy, or experience late-onset blindness like mummy. As a scientist Sherlock knew this as well and any assurances from John that the risks were not real would be a false, cold comfort.

So John didn't do that. There in the middle of a Regent's park path, John instead weaved short fingers with long and he offered his one true love the truest comfort of which he was capable.

"If they ever do, Sherlock, if your eyes ever do go dark, _I_ will be your eyes. So long as I have sight, so long as I'm _me,_ you have me. All of me, however you need it."

John pushed winter-long curls back from Sherlock's beautiful eyes. "We'll see together, like we always do."

Tick-tock moments passed, in which thoughts were had, a future was imagined. Afterward, Sherlock rested his forehead against John's, breathed in his breaths, grew calm. And Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes, smiling.

—  
_Thank you for coming along on this month-long journey that spanned six. However you feel about the TV canon for these characters, remember that ours is just as valid. We get to make our boys joyful and human and humane. They are ours and we can love them however we wish. I'd be grateful for your comments!_

**Author's Note:**

> Unremarkableawakening's [prompts](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/149555897153/30-day-challenge-sherlock) I'm using for this challenge.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Life We Choose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7955230) by [MissDavis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDavis/pseuds/MissDavis)
  * [First Christmas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194929) by [CumberCurlyGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CumberCurlyGirl/pseuds/CumberCurlyGirl)




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